Help me make one kick ass zoom baby shower happen!
October 10, 2020 3:44 PM Subscribe
My lovely cousin had a baby girl just a few weeks ago. An amazing thing at any time, but she has struggled with years of infertility and was devastated by a full-term stillbirth a few years ago. So, we want to celebrate this family extra hard-in Covid, via zoom. Help!
We have invited family and sent out a wishlist and her address with the idea that she and her partner can open gifts online and show us all baby as baby tolerates it. Her sister is sending cupcakes to her house. I’d love to send her a fabulous box beforehand full of ??? Decorations, something indulgent, the world’s best sparkling cider? If there was a box of fancy decorations that would be perfect.
We have invited family and sent out a wishlist and her address with the idea that she and her partner can open gifts online and show us all baby as baby tolerates it. Her sister is sending cupcakes to her house. I’d love to send her a fabulous box beforehand full of ??? Decorations, something indulgent, the world’s best sparkling cider? If there was a box of fancy decorations that would be perfect.
I have helped organize a few baby showers and more organized celebratory events over Zoom since the start of the pandemic. One thing that has been a great way to engage everyone on the call is having some for or share-out. For one friend, who has a big creative community, they organized invitees getting a pdf if a Alphabet Book page (A is for, B is for...) and everyone made a page in whatever medium they felt comfortable and then shared it as a slide show on the call. For my dear friend who doesn’t have as many artists in her family/friend group, we compiled a recipe book using google forms then I formatted it into a fancy slide deck. Then on the call everyone shared about their recipe (“This was my grandma’s recipe for coffee cake” or “This is a pantry recipe we made up one night that we keep returning to”).
We also used Flipgrid to prerecord video messages and played a few simple games. For games I asked the grandparents to-be for baby stories about the soon-to-be parents and I anonymized those stories so people had to guess which person it was about (ex: this person was a magazine model when they were 12-18 months old). And our friend put together a baby animal slideshow where you have to guess the name of the baby animal (like cat = kitten, kangaroo = Joey, porcupine = porcupette, which is important for everyone to know in 2020). Feel free to message me if you have questions and I’d be happy to share copies of the slides we made (using Google Slides).
posted by leastlikelycowgirl at 4:47 PM on October 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
We also used Flipgrid to prerecord video messages and played a few simple games. For games I asked the grandparents to-be for baby stories about the soon-to-be parents and I anonymized those stories so people had to guess which person it was about (ex: this person was a magazine model when they were 12-18 months old). And our friend put together a baby animal slideshow where you have to guess the name of the baby animal (like cat = kitten, kangaroo = Joey, porcupine = porcupette, which is important for everyone to know in 2020). Feel free to message me if you have questions and I’d be happy to share copies of the slides we made (using Google Slides).
posted by leastlikelycowgirl at 4:47 PM on October 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
If the baby was just born a few weeks ago, I suspect your cousin may be a little on the tired side, so keeping things brief might be its own blessing. (Unless she has told you "woooooo let's PARTY HARD").
As for decorations, though - for the virtual bridal shower for my cousin, the party organizer (my other cousin) sent all the participants a decoration beforehand, so we could all hang it behind us whereever we were so we would all have that on display in our Zoom windows. So maybe instead of sending all the decorations to the new mom, maybe also send some to the participants so they're also "at the party".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:53 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
As for decorations, though - for the virtual bridal shower for my cousin, the party organizer (my other cousin) sent all the participants a decoration beforehand, so we could all hang it behind us whereever we were so we would all have that on display in our Zoom windows. So maybe instead of sending all the decorations to the new mom, maybe also send some to the participants so they're also "at the party".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:53 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
My sister-in-law organized a Zoom shower for us this summer. She had a bouquet of helium balloons delivered that we set up to be in view when we were on camera, and she also had cupcakes delivered (told everyone else on the call that it was BYOCake, so it was fun to see how people interpreted that).
posted by coppermoss at 10:03 AM on October 11, 2020
posted by coppermoss at 10:03 AM on October 11, 2020
Sounds like fun! For the gift basket, maybe self-care gifts? I’ve never used them personally, but shower bombs always sounded like a good alternative to bath bombs (the birthing parent might not be able to take a bath yet, depending on birthing method). Although they might not be a super fun spectacle to open on Zoom.
I’ve said this in other baby gift-type Asks, but please avoid gifting items that make assumptions about how the parents are feeding the baby, especially early on before things are settled in. They can bring up strong feelings.
posted by liet at 10:09 AM on October 11, 2020
I’ve said this in other baby gift-type Asks, but please avoid gifting items that make assumptions about how the parents are feeding the baby, especially early on before things are settled in. They can bring up strong feelings.
posted by liet at 10:09 AM on October 11, 2020
Oh, a gift-for-mom tip! This is some advice I got from an actress when I had to miss my BFF's baby shower back home in CT (turned out that was a good thing, because it was a surprise shower and my friend was miserably sick the whole time and I fulfilled the much, much more important role of "someone I can vent to about how much I wanna kill them for putting me through that").
In addition to all the practical gifts, that actress suggested getting her a years' subscription to a fluffy, escapist entertainment/movie magazine. She said that for a new mom, it would be a welcome escape on the days when she'd only got two hours' sleep and the baby was fussy and her husband was being a jerk and the laundry wasn't done and the soup had boiled over and - oh, hey, let's just take a time out and look at pictures of people in pretty dresses.
My BFF reported that she LOVED it - the day the first issue came, it arrived right when she was getting ready to feed her daughter, and she was so eager to read it that she actually balanced it on top of her daughter's head so she could read while nursing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
In addition to all the practical gifts, that actress suggested getting her a years' subscription to a fluffy, escapist entertainment/movie magazine. She said that for a new mom, it would be a welcome escape on the days when she'd only got two hours' sleep and the baby was fussy and her husband was being a jerk and the laundry wasn't done and the soup had boiled over and - oh, hey, let's just take a time out and look at pictures of people in pretty dresses.
My BFF reported that she LOVED it - the day the first issue came, it arrived right when she was getting ready to feed her daughter, and she was so eager to read it that she actually balanced it on top of her daughter's head so she could read while nursing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by ananci at 4:45 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]