I sat there, on my freshly cleaned couch (thank you o! gods of steam cleaners), in a group of my very best friends. We were eating the greasiest of greasy pizza, occasionally stopping to fetch a rogue binkie or wipe a dirty face. We laughed, talking about the times we’d shared, where our lives had randomly found us, pausing now and again to wipe tears from our eyes.

These people, my friends – my very best friends – they’d flown in from all over the country to celebrate my daughter’s birthday with me. They didn’t have to. I didn’t have to threaten them with a tube sock full of quarters. They did it because they wanted to be there with me, with us, together.

I’d never felt quite so at home in my living room.

It had been so long since I’d sat in my home, surrounded by people who know me as I am, fucked up bits and all, and laughed so hard that I was afraid I was going to whiz myself.

Seeing packages that my friends, my Pranksters, had sent for my daughter, knowing they’d cared enough to send her something for her third birthday, it reminded me of the connections. How lucky I’ve been to know so many wonderful people.

Because I am.

Lucky, that is.

Back when using the Internet cost approximately nine bucks a minute and I used it to fuck with people in chat rooms (oh, like you didn’t), I’d never really understood that there were people behind those words. Even as a blogger, back in 2003, the very notion that the words I hastily strung together would be read by another person was mind-boggling. I assumed my site was read by porn bots trying to increase my penis size, not living, breathing people (I assume that the un-dead don’t have internet access, but I could be mistaken).

I have never been so happy to be wrong. No, not about the un-dead.

When I get asked about making money blogging, after I stop laughing, I’m always a little bit…stung. Not because I don’t understand the desire to make a little cash on the side, but because to me, it’s not what it’s about.

I’ll take the friends I’ve made, the connections I’ve formed over a stack of cash any day.

A pony on roller skates, tho…well, maybe not so much.

A present from my very best friends who work with me on Band Back Together.

(if you’re a member of the Band and would like to vote for Band Back Together at the Weblog Awards, you may do so here. MWV is nominated too, which OMG, but The Band deserves the award for all of the bravery they’ve poured into our site.)

After obsessing (I’m being kind here) and beating my brain against the wall, trying to allow myself to get over that stupid lump in my throat and just. fucking. do. it, I manged to, this year, talk myself out of talking myself out of planning a birthday for Amelia.

(did you follow that? I barely did)

I had my reasons. They sounded good rolling around in my head. I had my convictions. I held onto them in my grubby ass hands like a bottle of vodka. I didn’t NEED to throw her a party for her – she’d be happy eating Mouse Pizza while I suffered epileptic fits near the pee-smelling ball pit as we all contracted some mysterious Oregon Trail Disease.

That much is true.

She couldn’t care less if we had a zillion people over or if we went and played SkiBall until my arm threatened mutiny. I know my daughter and that’s the truth (truth time – she’d prolly giggle if my arm did, in fact, fall off)(if my severed stump of an arm did fall off, tho, I’d like to hope it would get me 100,000 points on Skiball).

But I had to do it. It wasn’t for her. Or Alex. Or Ben. Or The Guy on my Couch. Or even The Daver.

It was for me.

It was a way to challenge myself to do something that I was entirely certain I couldn’t do. Something I wanted so badly to do. Something that meant well more than eating sugar until we passed out.

It meant that for one day – one single day – I could tell my demons to fuck off, go back to bed, and leave me be. I could drown my anxiety in my little girl’s smile. I could show the world that while I had been knocked down, I wasn’t planning to be knocked out any time soon. That my demons could threaten me all they want, but they weren’t going to stop me from living.

I did it.

It’s a small victory, for sure. A child’s birthday party isn’t exactly the penultimate of challenges, however, it was one. more. thing. I couldn’t properly do. If PTSD hadn’t taken enough away from me, it tried to take that, too.

I call bullshit.

Since throwing the party, it’s as though a minor weight has been taken off my shoulders. Certainly it’s not the first or last challenge I’ll face, of this I am entirely aware. But it is a challenge. And I took that challenge, stared it in the face, and told it that I was, in fact, going to beat it into submission, if I had to go eye of the motherfucking tiger on it to make it scream UNCLE.

It did.

I’m one step closer to kicking PTSD in the taco.

And that feels fucking great.

—————–

How do you battle YOUR demons, Pranksters?

(Also: Band Back Together (which I know many of you are a part of) as well as my own site were nominated for a Bloggie this year. If you’d like to vote for one of the many deserving nominees (myself not included), you can do so here.)

Ben, my oldest, has two baby books – TWO – devoted to his adorable chubby-cheeked ass. Everyone was all, “just wait until you have your SECOND kid – it’ll be lucky to have a single baby book.” (this was before anyone knew I’d be HAVING a second kid, so “it” was a perfectly fine way to refer to my yet-to-be-gestating child).

When I got pregnant with Alex, I was all “IMMA PROVE THEM WRONG, BITCHES.” So I went to one of those fancy sites where you can create your own baby book with an adorable cover and paid approximately four kidneys for the honor.

You can guess what happened.

His baby book looks remarkably like my own – a couple of pictures shoved inelegantly into a never-opened book. Sure, the site I’d signed up at would EMAIL me to remind me to fill out month six or whatever, but I’d quickly delete them before I got all mushily guilty about it (postpartum depression is a motherfucker).

Amelia, well, I spent most of my pregnancy with her determined that something was wrong, so I didn’t exactly feel comfortable buying a baby book for her (oddly, I was right). I figured that if the unborn fetus lived, I’d buy her a lavish baby book and begin to fill it with all kinds of pithy observations.

Ha.

Ha.

HA.

Okay, so that didn’t happen. Who saw THAT coming?

Stop laughing.

After successfully launching a party for my girl this weekend, I was all “I need some nice photo books!” Which is a huge statement coming from me – I’ve never printed a picture in my life, much less actually arranged them in some sort of “book” to “hold pictures.”

So I turned to The Twitter, to find myself a place to order photo prints. See, The Twitter solves EVERYTHING for me. From dispelling the “feed a cold, starve a fever” Old Wives Tale, to hysterically informing me that Notorious SNOMG is going to bury me and I will have to subsist, Donner-party style, upon my angsty cats, The Twitter does it all.

The Twitter was sadly divided about this particular dilemma. Some suggested snapfish. Others swore it was crap. Some suggested shutterfly. Others said it was crap. Most people said Walgreens did right by their photos.

I was, of course, confused. This was more information than my wee brain could possibly process!

So I visited the second site I listed (I am desperately NOT trying to sound like one of those annoying PR blogs) and saw I could make a photo book AND THEY WOULD SEND IT TO ME.

Oh.

Em.

Gee.

That’s awesome.

Except it tapped into the unused slightly OCD part of my lizard brain, each time I had to create a page, thus reminding me that scrapbooking would be the death of me (and not just from boredom). I’d be so screwed if I were a scrapbooker.

Because of the twenty pages that come with my book, I have completed ten. You’re all, HIGH FUCKING FIVE, AUNT MOTHERFUCKING BECKY, because ten sounds like a BIG FUCKING NUMBER.

Until I tell you that I’ve easily spent an hour on each page. Each. Fucking. Page.

Because if it’s not perfect, I know I will point it out to everyone that sees it (read: three people): “Lookit that stupid embellishment – it’s SO not right for that background.”

What, me neurotic?

NEVER.

If you need me, Pranksters, I will be trying to starve my fever by feeding it vodka and working on this baby book for my girl. Then, I must make one for her big brother.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

Also: they may kill me.

On Saturday, thirty of my favorite people in the world came to celebrate my daughter’s birthday – finally. She was so excited (read: crabby) while waiting for her party to begin that I nearly sold her into slavery. But I didn’t.

We prepared by getting into our party dress:

Shockingly, she allowed me to help her pick it out. Generally my suggestions are bullshit in Mimi’s book.

She showed a little sass before complaining that her party wasn’t ready. Guess that next time, I’ll start the party at 8AM. Hope she doesn’t mind if I’m not there. SO not a morning person.

She promptly spilled her morning coffee on her dress, which pissed her off, but she quickly got over it. Her aunts Dawnie and Teala (all the way in from Texas with her boyfriend Brian) and uncles were arriving to help set up the party.

Now, I’m not a party person. I mean, I can do a keg stand like nobody’s business, but when it comes to all artful “this should go…THERE. PERFECT!” I’m pretty useless. One might argue that I’m ALWAYS useless, but that is neither here nor there.

While The Daver and The Guy On My Couch strung streamers, Dawnie and I got relegated to salting the driveway.

(P.S. we did a shitty job)

SPOILER ALERT!

(P.P.S. No one died)

Once the streamers were strung, it was time to bust out the real sweet shoppe stuffs I’d been hoarding.

Kinda looks like Willy Wonka barfed everywhere, right?

Right.

I don’t actually know what this is (it could be tampons) – but it was purdy and colorful.

I can’t resist something shaped like hearts. It’s against my DNA. Plus COLORS!

Then, an old favorite (that’s a lie) that can double as a toilet brush!

ROCK CANDY!

Gratuitous snap of rock candy:

(no one ate the rock candy.)(I’m going to pretend it’s because it was pretty, not because it tasted like raw ass)

Remember these? I do. Back before I had common sense (shut up, I do SO have some now. Like 5. At least.), I remember eating these. By the time I was 8 or so, I was all, WAIT A MINUTE, THIS CANDY TASTES LIKE GARBAGE EVEN IF IT IS SOOOO PRETTY!

I think I got tired of accidentally eating the paper.

And where would a good sweet shoppe party be without weeeee cuppy cakes? (answer: I don’t have an answer)

These cupcakes, made by Dawnie (who cannot salt a driveway to save herself), were not only freaking adorable, but delicious. Mmmmmmm….cuppycakes.

Also made by Dawnie were these:

Tell me these aren’t beyond full of the awesome. Because you’d be a lying liar who lies.

Instead of adding ribbons to the balloons so they could be dragged around the house, plastering my poor allergic face with latex, The Daver had the bright idea to simply fill the room with balloons.

If I teach you NOTHING else, Pranksters, let it be this: DO THIS FOR YOUR NEXT CHILD PARTY. I swear, the balloons occupied the children for at least three hours.

And a Hello Kitty cake for my birthday girl. Made by Dawnie. If she can’t properly decorate the house, at least she can bake. Right?

(I can’t even do that)

For all of the chocolate cake lovers, Dawnie made this:

The birthday girl was quite thrilled by her cake.

The day after her party, the kids opened some presents. We always buy the children who aren’t celebrating their birthday buckets of trinkets and stuffs to play with. It helps a little.

Amelia decided to show off her cannibalistic tendencies.

(lookit Alex. Bwhahahahaha!)

OH GOD, MY EYES!

Hello Kitty did NOT go gentle into that good night.

Alex, tearing into his bucket. Ben was hiding from the camera.

Girlfriend is going to be a better photog than me any day now.

And lastly, I made people sign something for her bedroom.

I’m totally leaving that fake baby in there.

Birthday hangovers, man, they’re a BITCH.

Since my brain is essentially mush (or mushier than normal!), I’m pointing you to this article which could use some opinions.

Will be back tomorrow with a less mushy brain.

Dear Amelia,

You were born, January 28, 2009, amid the whirring and clicking of the NICU team, over my frantic wails, and my doctor’s shouts of “GET THE NICU IN HERE STAT,” a whopper of a baby. Your rolls had rolls, making you look like a mini Stay Puft Marshmallow Baby. I longed, from my place on the bed where I lay weeping, to examine every one of those rolls. There’s nothing I love more than a brand new roly-poly, chubby cheeked, shit machine.

(you, post surgery)

But it wasn’t so simple, was it?

Amelia, you were born with a defect on your head. Right after you were born, it seemed as though it was probably a cosmetic issue, a benign cyst upon your wee head. The alternative, I knew from years of medical and nursing training, was a big. fucking. deal. indeed.

Guess which one you had?

My daughter, you are always the overachiever.

We had about twelve hours between birth and diagnosis in which we feverishly hoped that it was a boring cyst – your daddy and I and your Internet Aunts and Uncles hoped and prayed that you would be okay. It was only after your first CT Scan (I have to note that there is NO heading in your baby book for “Baby’s First CT Scan” which makes me think those baby book people have it ALL WRONG)(Okay, you don’t have a baby book. I really WISH you did, but you don’t)(sorry kiddo) that we learned that you were more of an overachiever than your mother.

It took hours to talk to a doctor that day, but when we did, the news wasn’t good. You’d already been ripped away from me and whisked off to the NICU, leaving your daddy and I to howl in sadness in our now-empty room. Your dad had tracked down your neurologist and was told that you had a neural tube defect. An encephalocele. You would need major neurosurgery and soon.

Amelia, why did you have to be such an overachiever?

It was there in the NICU that you were given your middle name – Grace. For you, in the face of all this adversity, showed me what grace looked like. Your father, he named you there.

The diagnosis left the future full of question marks (and you with a scar that neatly bisects the back of your head). Would you be normal? Would you survive? Would you learn as your brothers had?

The answer has always been a resounding *shrugs*

See most kids, my tiny overachiever, who have neural tube defects in the location that you did, do not survive. Most die before or after birth. Such a small handful of children with posterior encephaloceles survive that there is almost no data about them.

You are not only a million dollar baby, but a one in a million child.

For you are easily the smartest of my three very smart children. The connections you make between things. The way you understand concepts that puzzle most adults, that is nothing short of a miracle.

You are nothing short of a miracle.

In your short years, Amelia, you have done more good than any three-year old should be capable of. While your birth shattered me, you’ve helped assemble me back into a new person; a better person. You have given hope to people who have never met you, hope for parents whose children have the very same diagnosis – encephalocele – that you do.

You are the sole reason that Band Back Together exists. Through The Band, you have saved lives – actual lives.

That is nothing short of a miracle.

So to you, on the day before your third birthday, my darling girl, I want to thank you. For all you have given me. For the light you’ve bestowed upon the world, and your light – a light that continues to shine.

May your light always shine brightly, Amelia Grace.

Always.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Netflix,

I’m not entirely certain why you added to my list of recommendations, the show Hoarders, but since you did, I had the compulsion (see what I did there?) to watch it. I’d never seen the show, Netflix, because I figured that seeing 10,000 empty bottles and rotted animal carcasses was not exactly my idear of a good time. Now, if they’d showed people eating their weight in Captain Crunch, that’s another story. In fact, you should make that a show. I’d so be there.

Anyway.

For the first time ever, I chose to watch the show.

First, let me say that watching mentally ill people do wacky things isn’t my idea of a good time. I know mental illness. I HAVE a mental illness (PTSD IN DA HOUUUUSE!). I work with mental illness on Band Back Together. I’m intimately familiar with it and generally have no need to watch other mentally ill people be, well, mentally ill.

But you got me there, Netflix. You did. Since you told me I “should” watch it, I did.

I’m going to be honest here – I wasn’t as horrified as you might think. I’m not sure that’s an entirely good thing, though.

But I will give you some props, Netflix, for suggesting I watch Hoarders. Never, ever, have I wanted to get up at 11PM and clean my house. Never. Ever. And the only reason I haven’t done so yet is that I realized I’d wake up sleeping children which, Netflix, isn’t exactly full of the awesome.

Frankly, Netflix, I’m in debt to you. It’s like you somehow read my blog and knew that I had a super sekret (read: lame) resolution this year. No, not the whole, “not become Lil Wayne” thing, because that’s sorta a given. It would take a hell of a lot of sizzurp to turn me into that….um…thing.

But it’s made it hella easy for me to WANT to go down to the basement and somehow dry out 9,473 cans of ancient green paint to throw away. I suddenly cannot WAIT to donate my old clothing to charity. My children’s toy bins full ‘o’ crap shall be emptied!

(I think, Netflix, I’m going to donate some of the nice kids clothes to the Band Back Together auction this spring, because an Internet Garage sale seems awkward)

My resolution, thanks to you, Netflix, will be fulfilled.

So to you, Hoarders (and Netflix), I am forever indebted. Although, you do owe me some bleach for my eyes.

Love,

Aunt Becky

P.S. If you recommend I watch Intervention, I’m canceling your ass.

P.P.S. You should know better than to suggest I watch the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. That’s just cruel.

7: cans of paint bought in the last 2 weeks

9,284: cans of half-used paint found in my basement, all of questionable color and/or origin

2: light fixtures bought in last two weeks

2: light fixtures that need to be disposed of in such a way that NO ONE will ever know they came from my house.

1: little girl who is determined she will be a “big three” as opposed to a “little three.”

0: times that has made sense to me.

15: bags of lollipops purchased to make topiary trees.

10: times I was given the stink-eye by the cashier who is probably suspecting that I have a hoarding problem and is therefore looking for evidence of dead cats somewhere on my person.

0: dead cats in my house.

0: percent certainty this is, in fact, true.

12: cupcakes eaten to fuel the sugar-rush that this level of cleaning and renovation requires.

36: cookies needed to back up the cupcake sugar rush

9: number of wrong cuts made by The Guy On My Couch while replacing mouldings

13: length in feet of wasted moulding caused by those cuts

2: people who think it’s hilarious that he can’t remember which way the angle goes on some of those cuts

0: times I have believed that “moulding” is a real word.

1,028,928,002: times I have been certain that “logicate” is a real word.

30,000: number of people who are probably showing up at my house this weekend.

30,000: number of people who are probably going to criticize my bad taste in decor and/or inability to make my house look like a magazine.

30,000: number of people who I will try to pawn aforementioned light fixtures off upon.

0: times I have understood why boob lights are all the rage.

0: boob lights currently owned by me.

0: other types of ceiling lights available for those of us who do not want to think, “HOLY FUCKBALLS, CHECK OUT THAT BOOB ON MY CEILING!” every morning.

9,726,043: minutes I have spent trying to understand boob lights.

Your turn, Pranksters. Pull up a nice glass of vodka and tell Your Aunt Becky what is going on with YOU today.

I am not a crafty person.

See also this:

Yes, yes I made that. And I wasn’t trying to suck AT ALL.

I know, understatement of the year, right? (why I just joined Pintrest is beyond me – prolly so I can feel bad about myself MORE often)

That’s why it’s beyond me why I decided to do a themed birthday party. Frankly, I could’ve just thrown a few bottles of vodka and a couple of shitty take-out pizza boxes out and called it a day and everyone would’ve been all, “sweet ass.” But no. I had to renovate my fucking house.

Then I had the brilliant idea to do a CandyLand themed birthday party. Seems simple right? A couple of bags of fucking candy WITH some pizza and beer.

Not so much. Because I turned to Google and was all, SHOW ME YER CANDY THEMED PARTIES. And then I cried. Because they were so awesome and I couldn’t recreate that kind of awesome without the aid of the Lollipop Kids. And it turns out, the Lollipop Kids are like dead now.

And the more I thought about it (and the more I realized I hated the cartoons from the game), the more I realized that I’d be stuck as Gloppy, so CandyLand was PROBABLY a bad fucking idea. I mean, who wants to be covered in Gloop half a day?

So I decided that a generic Sweet Shoppe themed party (oh yes, I went there with the “e” on Shop) would a) be adorable and 2) be easy.

Har-dee-har-fucking-har.

Lollipop trees? I figured I’d be able to quickly throw some balls on a stick and poke suckers into them. Turns out? You need a fuckton of lollipops. I’m pretty sure the guy at Party City thinks I’m now a hoarder – of lollipops. I keep coming in to buy more. Turns out that lollipop topiaries take about a hundred zillion lollipops.

And the garland I’ve decided to make out of Froot Loops and twine? The sugar dust that is now coating my house is slowly turning me into a diabetic.

Great. Now I’m a diabetic hoarder.

Tell me that doesn’t look like unicorn poo.

I sure hope my kid appreciates her party. Thanks to my new Type 2 Diabeetus diagnosis (self-diagnosed!), my foot might fall off for her and I’ll never be able to find it in the gobs of lollipops now living in my house. See also: hoarder.

At least I have what appears to be unicorn poo living on my table. Things can always be worse. Even if my foot falls off.

This may win for most epic picture of the year. Altho, it’s still January and that picture is butt-ass old, so far, he is NUMBER ONE in my life.

Also number one, these posts (a lie):

I wrote about my new obsession. And it would be RAD if you could comment on it.

I also wrote about Amelia. I’m wicked proud of it.

We’re doing a birth defects/birth injury/birth trauma carnival on Sunday on Band Back Together if’n you want to join us!

So go read, then come back and tell Your Aunt Becky what YOU’VE been writing about this week. Let’s do a link-up, y’all.