Surprise baby shower! :o)

Yesterday we threw a surprise baby shower for one of our friend, Sheetal. Well, I say surprise, but wasn’t surprise at the last minute! We planned this elaborate how to do, what to do, when to do and kept it all hush hush! And then….. yesterday her son was playing with a neighbor’s kid and he came over to her to tell that he’s going to come for their party in the evening. She’s like, what party? We don’t have any party and the kid said, no, you do, it’s your baby shower!!! There!!!

Anyways, it was a fun party anyway. This reminded me so much about my baby shower two years back. With my son, I was in India, so it was completely traditional with my in-laws and parents participating in the ritual. When I was pregnant with 2nd one, and I was closing on to my 7th month, one of my friends, Vishali called and said that she would like for me to come for small party over the Christmas weekend. I was like, LUNCH! Are you sure? Coz she doesn’t like to get going early in the morning. :-)

After I kept the phone, I told Yogi that she’s keeping a surprise shower for me. Yogi is like how do you know? Here was my theory. My other friend Frany, who moved to MN that year would not have missed having a shower for me. And if she would come all the way to here, she would want to meet me early. If the shower is in the evening, then she will have to wait almost a day to get to meet me. So, they are keeping in the afternoon. Yogi thought I was losing it!

The week before the long weekend, another friend Shailee called up and invited for lunch on the same day, since Yogi hadn’t been to her new home yet. I said, actually I have plans to go to Vishali’s place that day and she had told me month back and not sure if the plan is still on. (It was my trick question to see if Shailee was invited coz I would have been surprised if she wasn’t invited. ;o)) Shailee said, if the plan isn’t on, she will invite Vishali too, since she hasn’t been to her house either.

Hours later, Vishali called and said Shailee called her and actually her plan had fallen through, since many of her friends were going out of town that weekend. So she had agreed to come to Shailee’s place for lunch. I felt sad that Frany wasn’t coming since it didn’t work out. So on Christmas morning we set out to Shailee’s house for lunch. On her driveway we saw Vijay’s car and were talking that they were already there.

After waiting for some time, Sundar (Shailee’s hubby) opened the door. As soon as we set our jackets, I asked him if Vishali was already there. He said no. Puzzled, I said I saw their car outside. Sundar seemed confused and said may be they are downstairs. Since he was upstairs, he didn’t know if they were there yet. So we reached the basement which was dimly lit and out of that darkness, one after the other Shailee, Vishali, Minaxi, Veena, Aruna, Nisha, Frany, their kids and hubbies emerged. I kept looking at each one, not knowing what was going on. Even after everyone saying “Surprise!!!”, I was still confused. After a few minutes I was able to digest the fact that it was in fact my baby shower!. LOL, I still remember the feeling, but not able to put it in words now.

So I was right in the first place. But they threw me off when the venue was changed. But all my friends thought that they gave it away with the last minute venue confusion. I told them I would have gotten dressed up if I had come to Vishali's place and surprised everyone over there. ;o). Oh the things we all do to surprise people!. LOL.
Well, It was the most amazing thing my friends did to me. They all cooked something special for me. Got sarees, jewellary, makeup etc for me to get dressed up. (Coz ofcourse, I was in some prego elastic jeans and top!! ) It still feels like a dream, a very sweet dream that touches your heart. I still remember that day and can’t believe how fortunate I am to have such lovely friends. And y’day when I saw my friend Sheetal tearing up, I knew exactly how she was feeling. :o)