Yesterday, I participated in a Zoom baby shower given by one of my long (we never say old) dear friends for her son and daughter-in-law. Yes, in July, when she told me she was going to do this, I searched many articles about virtual baby showers, to find the best one to send her to start.
THE BEST ARTICLE FOR ALL THE BASICS OF A VIRTUAL ZOOM BABY SHOWER
The best article for all the basics is on the website, What To Expect (When You Are Expecting). Of course, the website itself is a great source of information about everything dealing with pregnancy. It is the book that I recommended, what feels like light years back, at the beginning of this blog. If the grandmother-to-be and the expectant parents both sign up for weekly information, there is so much to talk about and connect the grandparents and parents-to-be. Having and sending a copy of the book is important, as well as the additional tips in the blog post. The post is “How to be the Best Grandma in the World with the Most Joy and Least Responsibility, from September 2011!
When you read “How to Have a Virtual Baby Shower,” on www.whattoexpect.com, the author, Jessica Migala, gives you an outline of everything you need to throw a virtual baby shower, and fills in the details.
As with the website itself, the article provides the best information: How to choose a virtual baby shower “venue,” virtual baby shower timeline, virtual baby shower invites, virtual baby shower registry, virtual baby shower decoration ideas, virtual baby shower game ideas, should you open gifts at a virtual shower? virtual baby shower guestbook, virtual baby shower thank you notes.
As she is artistic and so crafty, I knew long, dear friend would take this information to the next level. My long dear friend came up with three additional ideas of her own that are the best, as well as useful, unique, and different and made the baby shower special.
HAVE SEVERAL SMALLER ZOOM BABY SHOWERS RATHER THAN ONE BABY SHOWER
Again, years ago, another long, dear friend, told me about a “sprinkle.” I had no idea what that was and when she told me, I realized how wonderful this idea was, and wrote a blog post about it. “The Best Baby Shower Variation is a “Sprinkle.”
The idea is to have an intimate luncheon first with close family and close friends and then the large baby shower after. Yes, it means planning two events.
We are now in the virtual era of COVID-19, making it impossible to have a safe in person event. My long dear friend had the best idea. She had three smaller Zoom baby showers. She had one for the mother-to-be’s friends and family, one for the groom’s mother’s old friends and family, and one for newer friends and neighbors. This was incredibly wonderful. It allowed for joyful interaction with everyone knowing everyone else on the Zoom shower. It allowed for everyone to be on one screen, rather than scrolling among many pages. It allowed for greater participation due to the smaller number of people. Yes, the parents-to-be and grandma-to-be repeated the shower three times, but it is less stressful than having to manage a large group of people who do not know each other. Consider it like putting tables together at the shower of family and friends who know each other.
ALLOW FOR INTERACTION BETWEEN THE GUESTS AND TIME TO DEAL WITH ELECTRONICS GLITCHES
There are those of us who are not proficient at Zoom. The parents-to-be most likely are. With a small group at the baby shower, we guests who knew each other well had a chance to catch up while those who could not get the video or audio were assisted to join the rest of us on Zoom. Fortunately, we eventually all got on video together, thanks to the parents-to-be.
When we “played the games,” we were muted and each unmuted giving a chance to give our answers individually. Yes, the parents-to-be had to mute us all constantly, because we knew each other well, and enjoyed chatting. The games were clever variations of the article above that were great. My favorites were guessing the combined birth weight of the parents-to-be, the number of diapers in a diaper stack and how long it would take for a diaper to decompose. None of us got that right. For environmentalists, the answer of 500 years made us all gasp.
A TOUR OF THE BABY PRESENTS AND THE BABY’S NURSERY
At every in person baby shower, opening the presents is an extensive enjoyable activity. However, on Zoom, it can be tedious. The parents-to-be took us on a video tour of the unwrapped baby presents that took up most of their living room. The best, which I have never done in an in person baby shower, was the tour of the baby’s nursery. All of us guests, were able to not only see the nursery, but hear how and why it is decorated as it is from the parents-to be-themselves.
No, we could not partake in the beautiful baby cake or cupcakes, but the grandma-to-be sent each of us an adorably decorated envelope with edible and non edible treats before the shower. Of course, in this time of the coronavirus, it cleverly included two masks and two small decorated and personalized bottles of sanitizer!
The hour went by so fast, but, because we were on Zoom, each guest got to see the parents-to-be on the screen the entire hour and enjoy their company.
Yes, my long, dear friend is very artistic and crafty and the decorations were adorable and so individualized by her, but the best were her thoughts and ideas that made us feel so included in a warm and intimate virtual Zoom baby shower by the ideas of hers above.
We cannot wait to meet the new baby boy, on Zoom of course during this time, with
Joy,
Mema
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