Looking at the title now, I can see where you might think we have an elderly co-worker with an incontinence problem, but you would be wrong. Corner Stork is part of a company with about 80% female employees in the front offices, so we do baby showers and wedding showers here on a fairly regular basis. This past Friday, we celebrated our friend Brooke’s impending motherhood. Brooke—the brilliant woman who scours all the world’s possibilities in her passion to bring you the very best in unique baby gifts on our site (and she’s also a first-time mom-to-be)—is due July 5th. To welcome baby, we blazed a new trail in our office baby showers…
It’s a Girl!
The upper-right photo shows our Brooke at about 6 months. As I write this, she has about three weeks to go, but we’re all betting it’s going to be a little sooner than that. Her obstetrics team thinks so, too, because her belly is, shall we say, gigantic! Reports of twins have been vehemently denied—but I digress.
A Practical Idea with Punch!
Needless to say, we have baby gifts on the brain here on a daily basis, but we also know new parents need lots of stuff that we don’t sell—high chair, bassinet, baby monitor, etc. and diapers. We decided to stock up Brooke and daddy-to-be Trent with what they’ll need the most—diapers and baby wipes.
Our invitation (left) was issued to everyone in the company via email and posted in various locations. Guests were asked to bring disposable diapers of all sizes and baby wipes. Instead of choosing one specific hour (during which our co-workers may or may not be able to make it due to the nature of their jobs,) we held an “open house” in our department from 11AM to 2PM, when we served a few appetizers, luscious pink and yellow cupcakes (with carrot cake or red velvet cake,) and an amazingly yummy punch. We decorated our table with white vases filled with pink flowers and had a fabulous “flork” (combination flamingo and stork shown at the right) one of our co-workers created for the event.
The Only Game in Town!
People came when it was convenient for them, and the stack of diapers and baby wipes grew by the hour.We deftly avoided the need for party games by making the event an open house. With people passing in and out for a three-hour time period, we skipped the baby shower games in favor of an office-wide “Guess Baby’s Birth Day” contest. We had entry slips for guests to predict the birth date and time. Whoever comes closest to the exact day and time wins the prize, so it will be a couple of weeks or so before we announce the winner. Everyone had a great time, spent as little or much time celebrating as they wanted to, and we made a big dent in Brooke and Trent’s diapers and wipes spending! Now we’re waiting…just like Brooke, who’s going to be a fabulous Mom!
