My Three-Hour Vacation from Reali-- I Mean, Julie's Baby Shower

Me, Julie, Mona, and Kathleen at Royal/T Cafe

My dear pal and neighbor Julie is going to have her second baby next month. To celebrate, me and her friends Mona and Kathleen (who also recently had baby number two!) decided to throw her a shower.
. It wasn't readily apparent what the color scheme should be, because Julie and Shawn are keeping the sex of the baby a surprise. I know, I know... How utterly selfish of them, right? Don't they realize that they made the shower-planning harder because we were restricted to a few gender-neutral colors? And how about the fact that they're closing their friends and family off from a veritable universe of adorable but gender-specific baby gifts and clothing? GEEZ.
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Kathleen though it would be cute to have a "tea" theme (after all, both boys and girls drink tea!), so we chose Royal/T Cafe in Culver City as the venue. In between bites of Kobe beef burger and sips (gulps) of vino, we played fun baby shower games and chatted with one another. Then we went on to the de rigeur opening of gifts.
. I wanted to give Julie something special. She's my closest mommy friend, and Nolan is Benjamin's best buddy. The fact that I've heard Shawn and Vince say to one another "Save me! I lost my meatshield!" leads me to believe they have a special bond, too. So for Julie, I sewed a diaper clutch with matching changing pad and zippered pouch. For Baby Bowen, I made a blanket lovie with a snap-close tether for a pacifier or favorite toy.
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After several hours of laughter, food, and revelry, the party wound to a close. It had been a lovely afternoon, and it was hard to decide what the best part of it was. Was it getting to see the other wonderful women in Julie's life and celebrating this exciting time with all of them? Was it having the chance to toast a dear friend? Was it getting the rare opportunity to put on make up and high heels instead of my daily uniform of jeans and flip flops? To be honest, I think the best part of the shower was the fact that it gave me a break from this:
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Since Calliope's birth, I've been running on empty. I mean, having one kid is tough, but at least then you can hope to get a little time to yourself once in a while. Having two kids is a different story. Your personal time disappears like a fart in the wind. Yeah, having two kids is h-a-a-a-a-r-d. God, I hope Julie isn't reading this. She should be spending her remaining days in sweet ignorant bliss. Pretty soon, she'll have twice as much of everything - twice the laundry, twice the mess, twice the headache, twice the tantrums.

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Twice the love.