The Unstoppable Zuri

A Big Spooky Surprise

I used to love Halloween, but this year I hated it. Halloween was Elliot and I's anniversary. Our first date was to a Halloween party in seventh grade. This year was a big one, too. It would've been our five year anniversary.

To make matters worse, my plans with Emmi and Lucy were completely canceled. Even though we'd just made our super cute m&m group costumes this weekend. Emmi was so sick that she wasn't even at school today. Lucy's parents had some stuff they had to do at home or something, so it was up to her to take her little brother trick-or-treating.

So my plans of a fun night trick-or-treating with friends were gone. When hanging out with Trish at the Best Buddies Halloween party, she begged to come over to my place. The group home had activities for them tonight, but she insisted she wanted to hang out with me instead.

So we were going to sit on my couch and watch her favorite movie, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I didn't like, for the thousandth time. I was already feeling down, and this kind of just made me feel worse.

I would've rather just turned off our lights so we got no kids, sat by myself in a dark room, and eaten all the Halloween candy while watching Titanic and crying about the demise of my relationship on our five-year-anniversary.

Things were even suckier because my dad texted me and told me he was stuck downtown by the bakery because of road closures due to the annual Halloween parade. He was completely re-routed and had to take all the backroads home, so Trish and I didn't even have a ride back to my place.

We cleaned up the classroom where we had the Halloween party and waited on the curb outside for the last late buses to take us back to our place. Trish and I sat together and were one of the last stops.

When we got to my house, I noticed that our street was pretty crowded with cars. A lot of parents liked to drive in and trick-or-treat here, but this was excessive. A bunch of them were parallel-parked in front of my house.

I walked up the driveway with Trish and unlocked my front door. The house was totally dark, because it was already almost five o'clock. Trish and I left our shoes at the door and walked into the kitchen, where I flicked on the light switch and screamed the loudest I've ever screamed in my life.

"Surprise!"

I looked around at my friends, family, and family friends. Emmi and Lucy were there, along with my dad, aunt, uncle, cousins, and a few neighbors. I damn near shat myself when I looked over to the right, because Danielle was here too, along with her parents and siblings. She came up and hugged me.

"I have no idea what's going on! How are you here?" I asked her.

"Zuri, it's your baby shower! Of course I'd show up!" she said.

I looked around the house in awe. This...was a surprise baby shower? Really? The house was decorated amazingly. Now I knew where Emmi was this whole day. This had her style written all over it. A pink and black banner with bat designs hung over the kitchen windows. It said, "Welcome Little Boo!"

Black, orange, and purple balloons were all over. Festive cupcakes, cookies, and cake pops were around the table. Plates of little hotdogs wrapped in strips of Pillsbury crescent dough were labeled "baby mummies." They were next to small peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, labeled "finger sandwiches." In the center of the table, there was a cake made by my dad, obviously. It was of a 3D ghost with a bow on it. I just couldn't believe I was really at my baby shower.

When I looked around, I realized everyone was in costumes. I ran to my room and Trish went to the bathroom so we could change. I put on my blue m&m t-shirt and tutu. When I got out of the bedroom, I realized that Trish had coordinated with Emmi and Lucy. She was an m&m too. When I got back out to the kitchen, Danielle took off her jacket and I realized that she was part of the whole thing too.

I was the blue m&m, Lucy was red, Emmi was green, Trish was orange, and Danielle was yellow. We looked so adorable. All of us together made for the perfect Insta photo. The likes would definitely be pouring in after this one.

We ate, hung out, and had a great time. No sad vibes or traveling pants to be found. It was the perfect distraction to take my mind off of things. We had a few baby shower games, like guessing how many candy pumpkins were in a baby bottle, and decorating onesies.

Before opening presents, we played one final game, which was called blindfolded diaper changing. We had to change the diaper on a baby doll while we were blindfolded. I had yet to go to a specific parenting class. I'd only done a breastfeeding class so far. I knew how to pump, but I had no clue how to change a diaper.

"Imma win this bitch," Lucy said, going up against me. "I changed my little brothers' diaper a thousand times."

I laughed. "Welp, I'm done for, I guess."

My dad put the blindfold on me. We had one minute to do the diaper change. I was feeling kind of embarrassed. I could hear Lucy ripping things and shuffling, but it felt impossible for me to grip those itty bitty tabs of the diaper.

Eventually I got it, got the diaper off, and found the other one. I felt around for the legs. I hoped I was right, just as Lucy said, "Done! Where's my prize at?"

I pushed up on the diaper and tried to close it. The timer stopped. My dad took off my blindfold. Lucy was dumbfounded as everyone laughed.

"That's it's head, you idiot!" Emmi said, falling over on the couch with laughter.

Lucy really did nail it, but the diaper was on her baby doll's head. I looked down at my baby doll. The diaper was on the right part of the baby, but it wasn't closed, and it was backwards.

"I think we can call it a tie," my dad said.

We finished up the game, so it was time for presents. I got a lot of must-haves, like a diaper bag, carrier, and bottles. I was really excited to get some additional furnishings for my little lady's room, all in blue. I got the peanut-shaped changing pad I wanted, along with a humidifier and a projector/sound machine.

I was really excited to do a blue-themed nursery for my little girl, because it was different from the norm, and it went well with her name. It just made perfect sense. I loved having a unique name, even though it was a pain in the butt to find my name on a souvenir keychain and sometimes people didn't know how to pronounce it.

As for my little girl, I hoped she'd love her unique name as well. At this point, I just couldn't wait for her to get here.

***

Do we have any guesses for the baby girl's name?

We know that it starts with the letter S, is unique, and has something to do with this blue nursery? Hmm...what could it be?