Baby Shower (of a kind)

Back where I come from, we don't do baby showers before the baby is born. Or at least we didn't use to. When my daughter was born, we had a traditional women-only gathering at the 40th day of her birth. It is then when the child is introduced to people outside of the family and it's a cheerful and beautiful event.

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When does a new beginning begin? Does it overlap with an ending, does it have a specific minute and second, or do we move on to the next step slowly and gradually, still carrying the dust of the past clinging to our memories?

Today I am celebrating something new, beautiful and frighteningly different. Nothing built so far can serve as the foundation for this chapter in the lives of many of us, the one that begins the moment you become a parent. Here I am, and here is my still very tiny daughter; today we will celebrate Children’s Day together, and for the first time in my life I won’t ask for a present for myself, but will get one for her. This beginning is sweet again, but also difficult; consuming and fateful. It deals only with the present and carries an expectation of the future; it erases the past with a single sharp movement, with a single breath, simply by existing.

Because it is a celebration to have something so wonderful in your life, we organised a baby shower, for women only. There was a dessert table, smiles, lots of gifts, a ritual bread that wasn’t sweet, sweets that were white and pink (how else!), a photo wall and very, very little space, which was filled with love and good energy.

For the dessert table I made my regular buttery biscuits, Grandma’s sponge cake, our favourite chocolate muffins and, for the first time, cake pops: little balls of crumbled cake dipped in icing, resembling lollipops. There were also cakes from the grandmothers, and the dad made homemade lemonade.

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NIB & Ember