Dad's guide to all things baby shower, part 2

Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes

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SALT LAKE CITY — My father refers to the baby shower I’m throwing for my eldest daughter, Myelda, (the name she will allow me to use for her in public) as a coming-out party.

Oddly enough, he was the only one not surprised when I announced I was going to throw what will be heretofore known as "the BS" in the first place.

My dad’s opinion is that we should be first to do the things we don’t want to do because, as he has stated multiple times, “it puts hair on our chest.” This was also his reasoning for teaching us how to move rocks, stack wood and eat Grandma's wheat germ and pickled egg salad.

Myelda does not want hair on her chest, and I think it’s too late for me. So taking on something like this baby shower, something I have never rushed to concern myself with, is for another benefit entirely — one that I can’t put my finger on as yet.

Frankly, this baby shower doesn’t seem any harder to sponsor than other births, deaths or other Cheney family events, at least on paper — except for the time when Uncle Kent married a woman who changed both her religion and her preference for meat three days before the wedding.

After days of shopping and not finding what we wanted, we made these invitations. (Photo: Davison Cheney)

First on the list are invitations. Stores are full of ’em, and gosh darn it they are cute. I don’t want cute, however. I want either funny or baseball. There were no baseball invitations without ordering on the Internet — not what I want to do. Funny cards are no-shows, and I can’t find one.

So, I made my own invitations with a baby photo and a shower, which equals baby shower. I mailed a few and emailed a few. Done and done, reasonably funny without overdosing on cute.

Next up are colors. I picked blue and green, by default really, since the invitations went out already and they were blue and green. I could cheer things up with the addition of red, but this BYU fan doesn’t do red. Not even to bleed.

Next is the theme. I suppose we should focus on all things baby, or monkeys, which are in season. However, I wanted something different from the beginning. I wanted it to be about family, one big reminder that family comes first and that Myelda had a support system built in for the little dude who is forthcoming. I stuck to my guns, and the baby shower theme is set. It’s about my daughter and family.

The way to a nice baby shower is directly through the kitchen table. (Photo: Davison Cheney)

Now we come to the food. I have been craving meatballs for weeks, so they are a done deal. All the websites talk about frothy, frozen, frosting and the like. Being that we have not allocated a budget for refreshments, and that I just got the football fees grand total for the year for Myelda’s brother, frugality is a must. So, look for potato salad and the fixings to go with the meatballs.

I don’t decorate so well, so I will pull a few flowers from the yard and augment them with a few silk flowers I have from the year I tried and failed at a blue Christmas tree. Mostly I will paint the living room, clean out the rain gutters and make sure the floor is mopped and waxed. Clean is this year’s pink.

Still, something is missing. Baby showers can’t be this shallow. This one is looking like it will be only inches deep.

And for depth, I need my wife — not in a let-your-wife-do-it kind of way, but as a thinking resource, a team member. We have been on the same team since 1997.

Is it admitting defeat if I bring my wife in? I decided that it wasn’t anymore than it would be a defeat for her to ask my opinion or assistance for any task she works on. I would never begrudge her, and I didn’t think she would me. So I asked.

Glad I did. She doesn’t make fun of me or put me down. She just throws her head back and sighs — what she does when she is thinking.

She is on the same page that I am about the shower needing to be about Myelda and not the new baby, who’s name sounds like a new lawn and garden product by Black and Decker.

So we will focus on my daughter and save the baby stuff for when he is born.

It’s feeling better already. Now that I have gleaned an idea or two from my wife, I will kindly let her know that I will take it from here or she will try to have me add red.

Alcohol is not expected, nor will it be provided, and it would be in poor taste with a pregnant mother held captive. I am going to have to entertain the old-fashioned way — with sugar and K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Possibly Gloria Gaynor. Nothing says depth like disco.

And meatballs.

Ladies and gentlemen, Facebook invitations have left the building.

Stay tuned for part three of "Dad's BS" to see how this all turns out. Davidson Cheney writes, often humorously, at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com.