"Frau W, when is your baby shower..."

This is a question I was asked yesterday in class by one of my students. When I told him that I would be having shower number 4 in two weeks, his eyes popped open. "Aren't you just supposed to have one?" he asked. I didn't know how to asnwer. "If someone wants to throw me a party, who am I to say no?"

A point that was also made by another student-- Matt-- was that this upcoming shower would, in fact, be number 5. That is to say that the surprise party that my yearbook class threw me last Friday, of which Matt was a part, had already ranked in at Number 4.

For a while, I had been suspecting that some kind of party might be coming my way on behalf of my students. There were just too many times that I saw a paper flip over quickly as I approached to look over shoulders or a paper passed around the room. But I didn't know when or how. I figured that all my students were banding together to throw me a shower afterschool. The problem there was that I wasn't thinking like a teenage high school student.

Why have a party afterschool when it would be just as easy to do it during school and put off work?

So on Friday, I made my way downstairs for 5th period in the yearbook computer lab. Pretty much every day, I am late to this class, as I have to clean up from my AP's, throw my stuff in my bag, ride the elevator downstairs, and walk to my other room. According to our attendance policies, I would have failed long ago for so many unexcused tardies.

As I approached the room, Naema stood outside and ran in before me, closing the door. "Oh, haha," I thought. "They are going to teach me a lesson by locking me out. Very creative." I came up to the door and only made a minor note that the light was off. Naema swept the door open and I walked into the room. As I came in, she flipped on the lights and there were all my "kids" from yearbook waiting. "Surprise", they yelled, and all I could do was grin.

On my desk was a cake. And when I say cake, I mean CAKE. My student Brian, who is both a yearbook and a German student, works at a local bakery and gets a nice discount. So this cake had two layers; it had fondahn (spelling?), which is that fancy thick icing used on wedding cakes. I mean, this was like the kind of wedding cake a small wedding might require. And it was all for me. Atop the cake was my favorite thing so far... a small statuette of a highly pregnant woman in a spandex superhero outfit. Behind her flies a cape and on the pedestal below her, it declares her "Super Mom-to-Be".

Along with the cake, cookies, hot queso dip, soda, and pizza they ordered before I got there, was a pyramid of packages of diapers. Upon second look, I realized how smart my editors are. Rather than getting about 6 packages of newborn diapers, they had gotten a variety of sizes, from Newborn up to 4. (The top shelf of Jamie's closet is now covered in various sizes of diaper.)

The diapers was a fantastic gesture, but best still is simply the idea that they threw me a surprise party in the first place. I had no idea and there were quite a number of people who took part in it.

And guess what... that wasn't the end of it. Brian was in my 7th period class and let me know that he had been trying to get that group to bring food on the same day to keep the party going. Unfortunately, not many students remembered to bring food-- except for two big bags of soda cans. Needless to day, my day had been shot and 7th period still got to watch a movie after they finished their presentations.

But was that the end of it? Oh no.... this morning, I approached my classroom for 3rd period. Strangely enough, there was a sheet of baby wrapping paper over the window looking in my room from the hallway. I walked in and saw Kelly-- one of my AP students-- taping it up. There was another sheet taped across my desk. "You're early" she said!

Although I volunteered to disappear for a while, Kelly let me come in and stay, as one by one, my 13 AP students brought in food. Cookies, cupcakes, homemade ice cream, brownies, this really good dessert one of my students makes, chips, and something healthy--- bagels. (Thank goodness for Robert) In the end, I was sooo full of sugar that I didn't feel so fantastic, and we went outside to play Apples to Apples, as my AP's are pretty much finished anyway.

As a group, they got me an adorable outfit from Gymboree that features a pattern of camping and bears. Also a homemade blanket, and various bathroom products. As I told another colleague who commented on my students frequently bringing me goodies, "They have known me for 4 years. They have to be nice to me!"