Did you know there's such a thing as a "Gender Reveal Party"? It's for pregnant ladies and their unborn babies and comes before the Baby Shower (obviously, so everyone knows whether to get you pink or blue baby wipes). It's a recent obsession I think. I'm pretty sure my parents were just surprised on my Big Day. But now things are different. If you don't tell everyone very creatively and memorably what gender you're having, you'll be stuck with a lot of awkwardly neutral baby shower gifts that don't match at all. Like yellow or green or purple things or farmer-themed, because both boys and girls can grow up to be farmers, right?

And naturally the horror of having yellow, green, and purple, farmer-themed baby gifts

is enough to rally people for a totally unnecessary, thematically creative, cake-filled, bet-filled party.

The top two creative options to announce the gender (as determined by popular demand and sickening over-photographedness on social media sites) are as follows:

1. Cakes or Cupcakes!

Have a party centered around a cake or a cupcake that has a surprise colored filling (either pink or blue).

Because, you know, there's never enough frosting just on top of cakes/cupcakes. We need to cram the insides with more of the same. Preferably in teeth-staining shades.

2. Balloons in a Box!

Get a box full of either pink or blue helium balloons and open the box and let them float out!

Of course, you have to take super adorable pictures of them floating out and of everyone's surprised faces. Because of this, it may be best to have the balloons tied to the bottom of the box with fishing wire or something, so you can reenact the whole thing if a balloon or a squirrel photobombs the picture. Also, save the environment.

I think people love these ideas because the parents can be surprised right along with everyone else. They just have the doctor write down the gender on a piece of paper, then the couple can hand the slip of paper to a baker or balloonist (would that be a clown?) and hope that

(1) they have both pink and blue frosting/balloons in stock and

(2) they have better things to do than mess with you and your entire extended family.

But I don't really like frosting and can't depend on Husband to put up with a kitschy photo shoot (especially one we might have to re-do 68 times).

So, on a terribly boring airplane ride a few weeks ago (in which I actually got to use one of the airline sick bags, which I think should earn me a medal or at least some french fries), Husband and I started conniving more...creative, fun-for-us ways to let everyone who's curious find out Baby Ecklet's gender.

*Spoiler alert...this post won't actually reveal Baby Ecklet's gender. Yes, I know you're disappointed, but I'm obviously undecided as to how to tell people. I'll decide eventually.

1. Name Guessing

Tell the attendees the name you've picked out and see if they can deduce the gender.*

*Be careful of names like Taylor or Devon or Dana or Jamie or Kennedy or maybe even Morgan...you know, this is probably a good time to see if your name is orthodox enough to be socially acceptable.

2. Counts the Xs and Ys

On a flat surface, chalk/paint a bunch of Xs and Ys and have people count them. More Xs = girl; more Ys = boy!

For added fun, you could even make it like one of those "how many square in this square" puzzles and put the Xs and Ys into the shapes of Xs and Ys that make the shape of more Xs and Ys and they have to find every single one to find out the gender for sure. But that would take a lot of planning. And patience.

So not likely.

I'm too tired to fractalize this right now or make the big X less obvious.

2a. Count the Paw Prints

Basically Idea 2, but less scientifically based. Because I mean, who ever heard of a cool science-themed party? Certainly not Pinterest!

Pinterest would suggest you chalk/paint pink and blue puppy prints everywhere and ask people to figure out how many puppies there were and whether there were more boy puppies or girl puppies. Because puppies make everything cuter. And so do horrendously complex parties that take hours to plan and clean up after.

3. Needle in a Haystack

A needle in a haystack painted pink or blue.

Or hay in a needlestack if you want to pretend that you want people to know the gender but would rather they stab themselves a thousand times in the hand than actually find out.

4. Gender Checks (and more counting)

Rent an odd number of porcupines from a nearby farm and have people check the gender of each. Whichever there are more of, that's the gender of the baby!

Added bonus idea: have the farmer come and teach everyone how to tell a girl porcupine from a boy porcupine. And ask him to bring really thick hazardous material gloves. Just a suggestion.

I don't know why I thought of porcupines first when thinking of actual animals. I suppose you could also do with this baby ducks (you know, a "Waddle it be?" theme), but I don't know how to tell the gender of baby ducks. Either way, I'm sure all the parents of the children present will appreciate this opportunity for kids to start asking lots of fun questions.

Husband and I stopped brainstorming after this idea for obvious safety/sanity reasons and because the airplane started to take off I think.

Boy or Girl? How to Tell...

Please, let me know which idea is the best (or the worst). Or if you you have completely different suggestions, those would be nice, too.