Bubba’s Babies

November 30, 2011

When you find out your best friend since 5th grade is having a baby, you’re excited. When you find out your best friend since 5th grade is having two babies, you totally freak out and make a really high pitch squealy noise (just ask Rob). Ericka (also known as Bubba) and I (also known as Coco — yes, my mother called me by the name of the Gorilla who knew sign language) go way back. So far back we once did this willingly.

We met Easter weekend of 1993. I pretended to pick up sticks in our yard while secretly hoping someone in her family would ask me to come over and join in their Easter egg hunt. (Oh, how sad that must have looked.) Eventually, my wish came true. Little did I know that day would be the beginning of a friendship that has lasted almost 20 years! (Sidenote: Shit, that makes me sound old!)

One big happy family!

 Ericka convinced me to join the basketball team – a sport I’d never played but fell in love with in middle school. She asked a boy I liked, over the phone, to “go out” with me. She consoled me when that boy broke up with me for another girl a week later (oh the perils of 6th grade). She did my hair for every school picture day. She helped this city girl learn to drink well water. She taught me how to snap beans, navigate a bike on a gravel road and how to put peroxide on my knees when that didn’t go so well the first time.

Still playing bball together 15 years later at the March Whoopers and Hoopers tourney in Hastings.

The two of us hosted handstand competitions, “Vivian Richards” talkshows and a very poorly orchestrated dance to Tim McGraw’s “Indian Outlaw” for my mom. We’ve been caught eating cheeseballs in the hottub together. We started a roller rink in my old basement together (RIP CB’s place). We’ve taken the moped on the highway to grandma’s for a picnic together. She and I were even involved in the world’s slowest half-rollover car accident, a story that I can’t tell without pretending I’m on my side. In short, we’ve made a lot of great memories together and I couldn’t be happier she is going to be a mom soon.

BF for life!

Her recent baby shower made it even more real that she and her husband Chad will be bringing not one, but two people into this world. One boy, one girl. I’m still not over how awesome that is…

 
To celebrate Bubba’s babies, due at the end of January, but more likely to make an appearance in time for Santa Claus, we threw them a party at the Loess Hills Lavender Farm outside of Mondamin. 
 Here is Faith’s reaction when she found out the party wasn’t for her…little does she know she already had one.
We ate.
The spread: my only contribution was the “double-stuffed” Oreos. Clever, huh!
Cari’s awesome cupcakes!!
We played games.
The Price Is Right basket of goodies.      
 We scrapbooked.
All she has to do now is all the pictures 🙂
Someone’s page that turned out a lot nicer than the one Faith put 62 stickers on.
And then she opened the haul.

I wanted to get her something special in addition to the basket of goodies for the game so I bought 10 plain white onesies and some iron-on felt letters. This could be a separate post entitled “How to Get Angry and Throw a Tantrum Like a Two-Year-Old When Your Craft Project Doesn’t Go Your Way.” However, I will attempt to explain how I/Rob did this since they turned out so damned cute. Hopefully they don’t bleed in the wash and peel off, rendering them undershirts for the rest of their onesie lives.

Anyway, first I decided on sayings. I’d planned to do three of the five I ended up doing. I wanted to do a “he did it; she did it” version but didn’t have enough white letters to color so I wound up using the black ones and coming up with new sayings. I actually liked these the best when all was said and done. So, the sayings were:
Rockin’ on one onesie and Rollin’ on the other
Two Peas on one onesie and In A Pod on the other
Thing One on one onesie and Thing Two on the other
PB on one onesie and J on the other
and finally, because Chad is a basketball coach…
Double on one onesie and Dribble on the other.

Next, I colored the letters, but got distracted watching TV and screwed up. Rob saved the day again by telling me to alternate the letters on the Thing One/Thing Two set. Genius stuff I would have never come up with after 8:30 p.m.

When that was done, I attempted to follow the directions on the package, but realized I had skipped an entire step by not cutting the letters out of the sheet to begin with (insert lots of swearwords). I tried to do what it said to do after the step I missed, but the letters would not stay on the onesies FOR THE LIFE OF CARTER’S! Enter Mr. Lindquist. The man made those letters his bi — this is a family blog. He made those letters stick to the onesies. I did a happy dance and then Wayne and Garth’s “We Are Not Worthy” move.

The man. The myth. The legend.

The final result.

And hopefully they can wear these to match:

Adorable hats made by Angee’s Originals.

So Bub, to sum it up, these two people can’t wait to meet your two people…

Photo credit goes to Cari Anne McClannahan, who remembered her camera that day unlike moi. Her pictures are the non-blurry ones not taken with an iPhone. Thanks, Cari!