Lawyering Through Life

CoupleBabyPalooza

I don’t want to harp on this but the couples’ baby shower was pretty awful. First, it was not in a very good neighborhood. Then, I walked in and no one really noticed. I scanned the room for the guests of honor but was received with a room full of blank stares. Finally, Father to Be noticed me and came over. We were in the midst of a quick hug, when the Hostess (well, I deduced she was the Hostess) finally appeared. She didn’t introduce herself; just started rattling off details of the games I was expected to play. She pointed at a sign in sheet and said I was to sign in and then guess how many diaper bags are stuffed in the sippy cup. Um, okay. I gave her a blank stare which she took to mean I didn’t know what a diaper bag or a sippy cup was. That led her to condescendingly explain both of these items to me. She then pointed me to another game where I was expected to guess what baby related items were wrapped on a table. Oh, I forgot to mention, she grabbed the gift basket I had put together out of my hands rather rudely. I have hosted multiple showers and parties. This girl was such an amateur.

Father to Be then took my coat and brought in downstairs to the so-called coat table. Seriously. They had a round table where coats were just piled on top of each other. That made retrieving mine from the middle of the stack like playing coat jenga. But at the point, I was on my way out the door so it didn’t matter.

Back to Hostess. Father to Be left me standing in a room full of strangers while he deposited my coat. I turned to a guy who happened to be playing “guess the mysterious wrapped package” game. I said, “Wow, you are taking this really seriously. I bet you are going to win!” I don’t think he was happy that I had broken his concentration because he curtly replied, “Well, I have two infants so I should know what all this stuff is.” Um, yeah. Okay. That conversation was officially not going anywhere.

I make my way to the food table and load up on fruit salad and mini quiches. I should mention that I had been out late the night before and let’s just say, my hungover tapeworm wanted nothing to do with fruit salad or mini quiches. I took a seat on the sofa and focused on food. Father to Be came over and sat with me to catch up since it had been quite some time. As we caught up, I learned that his wife had recently found out that if she only returned to work part time after she gave birth, that they would no longer have health insurance. Father to Be had recently started working for himself and they were relying on her job to provide the family with health insurance. I was incredibly confused as to how they only figured all this out about six weeks before her due date but kept that to myself. Instead, I asked how they were planning to deal with this recent development. I mean, I would have been freaking out. No health insurance?? That’s terrifying when you are about to have a baby. I inquired as to whether Mother to Be would then return to work full time even though that was not her choice. Father to Be replied in a rather judgmental tone, “Well, we don’t want to have a daycare baby. We would like to raise our baby ourselves.” Um, okay. Lots of parents want to stay home. Not everyone is financially able to do it. If it works for you, great. But isn’t maintaining health insurance an important factor to consider when weighing your options? I wished them luck in figuring out the solution and offered tips on how I found health insurance when I was between jobs. His response of “Thanks, but we are just hoping it will work” seemed a little laissez faire to me, but what do I know? Apparently, I look like the kind of person who is incredibly confused by a plastic cup with a lid on top.

posted by jersey @ 8:13 AM