Alicia, one of our real moms here at Motherhood, shares her experience of planning a drive-by baby shower for her friend Nichole during the Coronavirus pandemic. The drive-by celebration was held on the same day Nichole’s traditional baby shower was supposed to be on.
Planning was so different than any other shower I’ve helped to organize. My girlfriends and I chatted over group text for the weeks leading up to it, trying to figure out ways to make it special without the normal resources. What supplies would we have access to for decorating? Where could we even get helium balloons right now? Amazon deliveries are running so behind – would they even come in time? Would our gifts make it? Everyone got creative using whatever they had on hand. I ended up cutting up old gift bags that I saved from my baby shower to make a “Baby Merritts” sign and covered my car in baby themed cutouts.
Nichole has always been a “sweatpants and hoodie girl” on the weekend, so of course she’s been living in oversized sweats since quarantine. When we told her husband about the drive-by he laughingly said, “I’ll try to get her to wear her nice sweats,” on the day of the shower. When we showed up, she was actually in leggings and our Motherhood side-ruched tee – I was impressed!
We all met in a nearby parking lot and staged the drive by, then swung back around to hang out for a bit at a distance. My husband and kids tagged along and got some much-needed social interaction… although, my two and four-year-olds aren’t so great at the whole “social distance” concept.
Being a mom of two, the whole thing was emotional – from both the standpoint of missing such a huge milestone in your 1st pregnancy and seeing the huge turnout and effort that went into making the drive-by as special as possible. It was amazing – and Nichole was also probably relieved to be off the hook from dressing up for her shower!
