Article Surfing Archive

My husband and I recently had a baby, and family and friends have been dropping by regularly to visit and see our new addition. We live near my family, so they've been over almost every day while my husband's family is spread out all over the United States. Since his family can't exactly drop by for obvious reasons, we've gotten a lot of cards, letters and gifts in the mail. One day the doorbell to our apartment rang and I opened it to find a delivery person with a gift basket. After thanking him, I took the basket and placed it on the table with all the cards and letters we received in the mail that day. I thought I would wait until my husband got home from work so we could open them together.

As I looked at the gift basket, I noticed it was filled with European chocolates. I briefly thought that was an odd choice and was going to look at who sent it when my newborn awoke and let me know it was time for the bottle. After feeding her and putting her back to sleep, I had a bit of a sweet tooth so I decided to open the gift basket and have a chocolate. It was delicious. One chocolate turned to two and two quickly turned to four and before I knew it, I had eaten almost half the basket. This was no small feat as there were a lot of chocolates. I guess I wasn't quite ready to give up the eating habits I had before the baby was born. As I was enjoying the chocolates, my husband came home and I mentioned that whoever in his family that sent the gift basket really knew what they were doing.

I thought it a bit odd at first (expecting a baby gift basket, if anything) but once I bit into the first chocolate, I knew that whoever had sent this realized just how much I needed a quality chocolate break from the stress of all that comes with having your first baby. This made me remember that I forgot to check the card, so I asked my husband to look since he was up. As it turns out, this gift basket I had halfway devoured was intended for our next door neighbor. It was delivered to us by accident. Here I am, relaxing on the couch with a chocolate in my hand when my husband breaks the news to me. With my chocolate filled mouth wide open, I looked at him so seriously as if to say, "What are we going to do?' He started laughing, which made me start laughing as I now saw the humor in the situation. We ordered a new basket to be delivered the next day for our neighbor and also went by to explain what had happened.

We all had a good laugh over it and I was relieved since I had never formally met our neighbor and didn't know what to expect. I'm actually quite glad that this happened. I got to meet our neighbor and learned a valuable lesson about checking the card before you open the gift. I also know what I will send my friends and family after they welcome a new addition. I'm sending chocolate.