While I’m totally aware that there are some nasty people who lurk around on the internet looking to leave mean comments for people going though some shit or another, with the express purpose of making the author feel bad. I’ve seen ’em in the darnedest of places, popping out now and again to spew nastiness and bad karma around, but they’re not here.

I expected some woodwork crawlers to come out to chastise me for a) feeling badly during such a (to quote my friend Five Husbands) blessed time AND to rail on me for b) considering taking druuuuggggsss while *gasp* pregnant. And while I haven’t closed comments, so the woodwork trolls might pop out at some other time, I was shocked and overwhelmed by the support that The Internet provided me when I really, really needed it.

Thank you sounds more hollow here than I’d like it to, but it’s all I’ve got, unless you want me to stick my coffee-coated tongue down your throat. Which I totally will (if you’re not sick).

With the placebo effect of my Vitamin W on board AND the triumphant return of coffee! to my diet, I admit to feeling loads better. I’m sure the actual omission of struggling and the embarrassing revelation that I might have feelings also contributed to my new feelings of almost-well-being. Honestly, I don’t quite care WHAT it is, so long as I feel more hopeful than I had been feeling.

So, without further long-winded adieu, I welcome you to a new feature on my blog. One that won’t slow down page loads or alert the Work Authorities that you are Not Working. AND, it’s my favorite kind of post since it involves audience participation.

3 Of The Most Cornball Songs I Cannot Live Without (But Can Barely Admit To Liking):

1) Aerosmith’s Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing.

Now, I saw Armageddon, which appeared to me to be one gigantic Pepsi ad (don’t believe me? Go look at the end of the movie, when everyone is all old tyme-y and pretty much everything is covered in American Flags), but had kind of a cute premise. Plus, it had Ben Affleck in it before he got covered in fug, which at the age I was when it came out, was a huge bonus.

But that song. Oh, that song. Oh, how I longed to have someone care about me enough to wonder if I was dreaming about me. Now that I look back on that song, after looking up the lyrics, I’m suddenly shocked that I never saw how creepy it was.

“I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing”

*shudder, shudder*

Who doesn’t like SLEEP? CRAZY PEOPLE, THAT’S WHO.

I suddenly feel relieved that no one seemed to associate that song with me. Because they might be very well polishing my skull into a nice ashtray as we speak.

2) Rod Stewart You’re In My Heart

It’s always been with great trepidation that I inform people that not only do I *like* Rod Stewart, but really, I *love* him. You see, I cut my teeth on good classic rock and metal and Rod Stewart is pretty much Easy Listening, a genre of music I tend to despise.

Regardless, You’re In My Heart is one of the most honest love songs I’ve ever heard, even if the singer has that foppy, weird hair on his head. It’s not all I loved you since the moment I saw you, which makes me believe it, because seriously, the first thing I thought when I met Daver was “Holy shit, he’s wearing black jeans. Who wears black jeans anymore?” Answer: The Daver.

When Rod “The Bod” sings,

“You’re a rhapsody, a comedy
You’re a symphony and a play
You’re every love song ever written
But honey what do you see in me?”

I might even get shivers. Seriously. Maybe even goose-bumps.

3) Bryan Adams Have You Ever Loved A Woman?

Now let’s be clear here: I’ve never really, really ever loved a woman. Sure, I’ve made OUT with them (remember that Ashley? Don’t even pretend it didn’t happen), but I’ve never loved them in the way Mr. Adams implies. In fact, I’ve often been glad that I *didn’t* love them. But alas, I digress.

Really, I don’t even know WHY I love this song so much. Much like Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing, the lyrics certainly leave much to be desired. I mean, when he says stuff like, “she needs somebody to tell her that it’s gonna last forever,” I struck by the way that Daver will remind me of this by cackling wildly and saying, “You’re stuck with me FOREVER.”

But something about his stupid soft voice makes me kind of want to make love on a beach with a hot male model like that Chris Issac video. Or with the guy from House, MD. Or both. Then again, when DON’T I want to do that? Answer? NEVER.

————–

Your turn. C’mon lurkers. I admitted that I liked BRYAN ADAMS. BRYAN “I SUCK” ADAMS.

A big and hearty thank you from the bottom of my shriveled and blackened heart should go out to each and every single person who thoughtfully left me a comment on my last post. Sometimes, it’s all I need to hear that I’m not alone, not really, in any of this.

————————–

“You told me goodbye, how was I to know
you didn’t mean goodbye, you meant please don’t let me go?”

-Grateful Dead, High Time

I’d been feeling pretty overwhelmed, this much I was aware of. The collective works of Auggie Doggie and Alex meant that my home was destroyed about 20 seconds after I’d painstakingly reached down–not so easy with a burgeoning belly– to clean up the shreds of (insert destroyable substance here). I’d petitioned loudly to find Auggie a new home, but my cries were loudly drown out by promises of puppy school and a better behaved dog (neither of which has happened, I feel I must disclose).

And I couldn’t really see how giving up Alex was going to help anything. But with him napping at most for 2 hours a day on a really, really good day, I’m still unable to catch much of a break from the perils of toddlerhood during the day. Sure, I might joke about it now and again, but Alex is easily one of the busiest and most intense children I know. Which is exhausting. Simply exhausting.

Dave works a job that make other women with small children cringe. His hours are intense, he commutes about an hour each way and is beholden to the Almighty Train Schedule, and what I mean by intense is that his hours are insane. He’s easily gone before the kids are up and back after they’re in bed. I joke that I’m a single parent during the week, because, well, I am.

After some major thing was passed by some governing body somewhere, he had to scramble madly to suddenly take care of something brand-spankin’ new and important…

(aside here: it’s ALL important, top priority where he works. At least, in their heads. As someone who is at least TRAINED to handle life threatening emergencies, I find it absurd.)

…which happened to eat up most of the weekends for the past month or so. And the nights AFTER he comes home. And pretty much any time I might have needed his help with something as simple as “watching the kids so I can shower” or “carrying large baskets of laundry up the stairs.” It’s uncanny and Big Brother-like his job is with picking THOSE moments to require his immediate attention.

But, his job is what allows me NOT to use my training in life threatening emergencies (since I hate it) to earn a living, and for the most part, he really, really likes it.

After fusing my eyelids shut by crying so intensely this weekend (and after Dave was called to work for yet another day off, in which I had such un-fun, yet necessary things that required his help like Going To The Grocery Store, and Buying Gigantic Underwear planned), I realized that something had, indeed, given, just like I’d wanted.

Problem was, it was my sanity.

All of those things, all of these things plus everything I haven’t mentioned here has been nothing but additive to my situation. While I’d occasionally try and subtract something, it never helped, primarily because I never have been able to determine what it was that I could safely subtract.

Sure, I could not feed the (dogs, cats, rabbits, kids) but it wasn’t really THEIR fault that I had no one to help me out. Plus, with the exception of the rabbit, the rest of them would merely follow me around, getting underfoot until I tripped over them and fell SPLAT! on my large ass.

I think we’re going to hire a nanny or a babysitter for a couple hours a day for me so that I can actually do such chores that require me to go from the main floor to the other floors of the house without Alex having an abject temper tantrum (Ben had the Terrible Threes, Alex seems to have started with the Terrible Ones. This bodes ill.).

But, as anyone who has been overwhelmed (underwhelmed?) and feeling remarkably unstable knows, things like this, which are a process, not an event, can feel remarkably daunting when faced with all the steps to get from here to there. Stupid platitudes like “one day at a time” (something I’d normally appreciate) don’t really work right now, since I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the next hour, let alone an entire day.

I started back on my Vitamin W yesterday, and while I can’t say I’m feeling loads better already, I’m glad I’ve taken a positive step towards getting better. After all, January is a long way off, and I’m pretty sure that new babies aren’t known for easing responsibilities, right?

Oh well. At least I’m lactating for her already. How sexy is that?

As anyone who really knows me knows, I’m not really one to talk about “My Feelings.” Hell, typing that simple word there, the one any 3-year-old sings about, makes me squeamish. I’d prefer that I don’t have them at all, truth be told, let alone mentioning to people–some complete strangers no less–that I might have feelings other than “happy,” “sad,” “sleepy,” or “I want a fucking cheeseburger.” Potentially a side of “I need a damn nap” as well somewhere in there.

So when I struggle with something, I tend to downplay it. I don’t often get into the nitty-gritty of what’s goin’ on to even my best friends, I don’t have long and detailed discussions with Daver about whatever issues there may be floating around in my head, and I certainly don’t want to admit it to myself. It’s like I somehow imagine that if I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist. Besides, who wants to listen to someone whine about their life?

This was how I got through months and months of living in a weepy, postpartum depression world after Alex was born (and never went to sleep again) before seeking treatment. And after I started my Vitamin W (Wellbutrin), I was seriously pissed at myself for not admitting my problem sooner. I gained nothing by staying silent, and the person who paid the highest price was me.

Before Alex was born, however, I struggled mightily with something even less talked about than postpartum depression: PRE-partum depression.

I spent most of the months I was pregnant with Alex after struggling to get pregnant with him in the first place, completely and utterly miserable. I worried and I fretted about each and every twinge, each and everyTHING I could think of. Most of those 9 long months were spent with me sitting on the couch feeling downright despondent, disturbed, depressed; certain that I wouldn’t get my happy ending after all. That my feelings of panic and dread were something MORE than a symptom of depression in my addled brain.

So when I got pregnant this time, I stayed on my Vitamin W until I was rudely informed by one of the OB’s in my practice that I’d be seeing the HIGH RISK OB if I continued on it. Not-so-shockingly, I decided to rough it out on my own until I couldn’t any longer.

Most of this time, I’ve been okay. Truthfully okay.

It wasn’t until Daver had a bit of a nervous breakdown at the end of August that I realized how thinly the string holding me together had become. It’s been a really, really hard year for me. No, that’s not quite true, let me rephrase that: it’s been a year that’s tested me. It’s been non-stop: my dad’s heart attack, my post-partum depression, Steph’s death, the two miscarriages, then this pregnancy that I never accepted would make it, then Dave’s breakdown.

I guess I only have so much to give anyone, and it’s all been taken. And I’m left sitting here and struggling, much like I did with Alex. I absolutely have my hackles raised, I’m going to see how long I can tough it out with this wee one still inside before I consider going back on my meds.

I’m thrilled by this baby, so very thrilled. I love my life, I love my husband (most of the time), and I’m tickled constantly (literally AND figuratively) by my two children. And I was so afraid to mention how I’ve been struggling BECAUSE I know that someone will misinterpret what I’m saying and twist it around to remind me of how lucky I really am.

Which is something that I already know: I have most everything in the world I’ve ever wanted. How many people do you know that honestly feel that way?

And I went back and forth with talking about this here. It’s a public forum, and while I don’t often worry about what I would say–people who I haven’t exactly peed roses about here may not understand WHY I feel like I do about them, but I tell The Truth According to Aunt Becky and I stick by it–I know this isn’t the same type of posts you normally get from me. Which will piss some people off.

But I’m telling The Truth because someone has to. Since those women went nuts and killed their kids, there’s been a huge push to get the word out about PPD (postpartum depression), which is good. People SHOULD know about it.

Pre-partum depression is rarely discussed, tho. Women don’t talk about it openly, lest they be branded as “ungrateful” or my personal favorite “unfit to be a mother.” Instead, those who suffer from pre-partum depression suffer alone and in silence about it. Because if you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist, right?

Don’t believe me? Do a google search for the term “prepartum depression.” Most of what comes up are other blog posts about it. It’s out there, it’s just swept under the rug.

So this is me, your Aunt Becky, telling you, that this exists. And it hurts. And it’s hard. And I’m struggling right now. I’ll make it through, of course I will, it’s what I do, but for now, for right now, I’m hurting.

And now I’m encouraging you, my faithful readers, to share YOUR Truth without hiding from it. The Truth can be ugly; it can be not-fun to admit; but sharing it is a Very Good Thing. Besides the uncle pervy’s out there who find my site looking for “cheeseburger crotch” and “excess skin balls,” I’m damn certain that someone will find this post, someone also struggling during what is supposed to be the happiest time of your life.

And to you, I tell you definitively that you are not alone.

When I was pregnant with Ben, all I wanted (and thought) about was how much I really wanted to have a baby girl. I was beyond floored that my child was a boy, when I saw his twig and dangle-berries floating merrily in his sea of amniotic fluid. And I’d be lying if I told you that it was an easier mindset to frame.

See, when you have a baby with a man you hate, the last thing you want is a son that may turn out just like him. I wanted the son, sure, but did I really want one JUST LIKE HIS FATHER? I guess it’s kinda hard to explain unless you’ve been through it.

When the ultrasound tech asked me if I wanted to know what I was having when I was pregnant with Alex, I can honestly tell you that I was Zen with either result. Over the 5 years between them, I’d gotten over cleaning the privates (very, very different and weird), gotten over the ugly clothes, and started to embrace all things boy. But I was indifferent with the result of our humpin’. Providing the baby was healthy, I was okay with either gender.

And when we got pregnant this time, after my two-in-a-row miscarriages, I spent the first many weeks pretending that I was not, in fact, pregnant. Mainly so that I could safely function for the rest of my family, rather than be consumed with worry.

While I was thrilled when the US tech pronounced this baby healthy three weeks before Thursday, since we had to go BACK for the heart and brain views, I still worried. I mean, it’s not like a child can live without those, right? And when she said that I MIGHT (but don’t do any shopping–she warned) be having a girl, I suddenly realized that this, THIS was what I had wanted.

I’m sure that I’d wanted it all along, the daughter to my other two sons, but I don’t know that I ever admitted it to myself. What good was hoping for something so out of my control that it’s laughable? I know that there are ways to do this, but I was pretty happy taking my chances.

It wasn’t until she told me that I might be having a girl (or at least a penile-y challenged boy) that I realized just how MUCH I’d wanted it. I wanted it so much that I’d see little girls during that three week wait and hope furiously that I wouldn’t be the creepy older woman secretly mourning not having produced a daughter.

So when immediately after putting the goop and the transducer on my belly, she said, “Looks like you ARE having a daughter” I might have cried a little. Perhaps more than a little. Being someone that rarely cries in the absence of physical pain, this shocked me.

Several long minutes later, having pronounced my daughter the picture of help, the Sausages were allowed back to see their sister.

Ben had been secretly pining for a sister, too, so this was incredibly welcome news. He was so tickled that the formerly cold US tech offered him not only his own picture, but a frame to put it in (Thank you, Similac!).

Even Alex stopped his normal wiggly antics to sit in silence in Dave’s arms while he was shown His Baby. Then, once Dave lovingly put the picture of Ben’s new baby into the frame, Alex promptly stole it and wandered around the waiting room to show the roomful of patients “his baby.”

Looks like The Sausages are all pretty excited about the new addition. Which I’ll savor for as long as THAT lasts.

And I haven’t stopped shopping long enough to eat, which is really saying something. Any ideas where I can get some decent girl clothes that don’t have “princess” written on them? Or look like they’re designed for miniature strippers?

The forecast today?

Sunny with a chance of PINK.

Looks like we’re having a girl. My wallet is aching already.

In a stunning fit of Did You Really Pick THAT Day? among years of this same pattern, my mother (read: babysitter) is going to be out of town tomorrow. Which is normally no big whoop for me, since I’ve been able to function without seeing my mother every day for many years now. But it’s hilarious to me since she always happens to be out of town the on the one day (or days) that I could really use her help. The timing is always perfectly, well, off for all of us.

So, this means at 8:45 AM, instead of dropping my big son off at school, I will be dragging all of the members of The Sausage Factory into my OB appointment, where I’m hoping to get a definitive look at such irrelevant structures as “The Heart” and “The Brain.”

What? I meant the Tin Man and the The Scarecrow lived without them and they were JUST FINE.

(Thankfully, although I’m not specifically trained to read ultrasounds, I was immediately able to see the baby’s wee heart, all four chambers intact, beating away the last time. This touched me more than it should have.

Along the same lines of Things That Made Me Silently Weepy But Are Weird is this: I was looking at the ultrasound picture of the Baby Sausage and noticed that in one picture it’s mouth was open. The next photo, it was shut. Why this was so incredibly heartwarming, I don’t know. I guess I realized that it takes after it’s mother in it’s inability to shut it’s mouth for a goddamned minute).

I’m also hoping to know for certain if my Blog Poll was correct, of if I merely had a boy with an unfortunately sized weenis (not that I would care AT ALL. The respective sizes of my son’s weeniers is just not important to me. In fact, I don’t WANT TO KNOW). I’m dying to call Baby Sausage anything other than that OR “it.” Just seems kinda impersonal for something that is both causing me to eat every chocolate chip cookie in sight while sweating like a sumo wrestler, right?

Oddly, I’m not as nervous now as I was for my first, since I can feel this baby moving around and boogying around in my old uterus, and since I’m aware that nothing was wrong the first time around. Just wasn’t big enough to get real measurements.

While I’m aware that tomorrow morning could be a Disaster of Epic Proportions, I’d have to have lost both legs AND arms to stop me from going.

Alex will be, well, a destructive force the likes of which are rarely seen this far from the Mason-Dixon line and Ben, well, Ben will be the most talkative narrator on the planet, peppering my poor husband with observations about everything from the sidewalk outside of the hospital, to the inevitable vending machines we’ll pass, to the plastic potted plant in the waiting room (Hel-lo Run-On Sentence!)

Looks like Dave will have his poor hands full while I get checked out.

Wish us all luck!

Meanwhile, I’m going to give my people some pictures:

First, this is a picture of my husband, The Daver, who is rarely captured on camera. He’s elusive enough that I’m quite certain there’s a subset of people who believe he’s all in my head. Or maybe not.

Here is Ben, preparing for the addition of another sibling by reading a book about siblings. Why yes, they all have the same haircut! How kind of you to notice.

And here is a picture of Alex (whom we often call “J” after his middle initial). I asked him what he thought of having a sibling. This was his response:

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself shopping for the last thing in the world I’d ever expected to be shopping for. Shockingly, it wasn’t the mini-van we test drove. No. It was something even more shame-provoking and cool-reducing than that (if that even sounds remotely possible!).

That’s right, my sweet and sexy Internet, I looked into buying a BLACKBERRY.

Big deal, right? I’m sure some of you are saying. I have mine, I’ve had it since dinosaurs roamed the planet and I couldn’t live without it. It’s my right arm AND my left arm.

And to all of you, I stick my tongue out and blow a large raspberry in your general direction.

Kool-Aid drinkers.

I’ve mocked Blackberries since I saw the first Business Professional Douche-Bag talking into what appeared to me to be a wallet. Having recently come from my Mental Health Rotation, I was actually wondering if the guy was psychotic until I looked at his uber-shiny leather shoes. Nope, not crazy.

I was incensed well before The Daver drank the (work) Kool-Aid and brought one home from work himself. Here is a device that has made it socially acceptable to–while out to dinner and engrossed in conversation with a Real! Live! Person!–whip out a wallet sized menace and CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

I don’t know about you, and maybe it’s just jealousy on my part, but the emails that I do tend to get on a day-to-day basis fall into one of two categories:

1) Chatting with friends. Simple emails, usually, a couple of lines, asking something specific or just saying howdy. Obviously not urgent.

2) Emails that remind me a) that I have a tiny, tiny penis and I should pleasure my woman more (aside here: how did they KNOW?) b) I’m incredibly overweight and should buy this non-FDA diet drug from an Internet Pharmacy or c) Nigerian pyramid scams. Obviously incredibly urgent.

I cannot see how either of these riveting emails must be responded to post haste.

In the past couple of years, I’ve come up with some elaborate schemes to rid myself of The Daver’s irritating Work Umbilical Cord (up to and including flushing down a toilet, throwing from a train, and my personal favorite: smashing to bloody bits). I gave up shortly after I realized that no matter what I did to it, work would be damn sure to give him a nice new untainted one. In a word (or two), my ideas of destruction were utterly pointless.

I guess that having that stupid device around is a constant reminder of how much MORE important The Daver is than I am because he DOES need to check it. It also reminds me of how much I hate living in such a highly reachable age some days.

But for me, someone who gets either chatty emails or spam, someone who rarely even remembers to bring her cell phone around with her when she goes out in public, a Blackberry is the most useless waste of $200 I can think of.

Hell, I’m not even enough of a gadget person to claim that the reason I’d wanted it was to dick around with it. If I were somehow to get one, I’d probably demand beg Daver to set the whole thing up for me so that I didn’t do what I normally do with small, expensive gadgets: break them into tiny unrecognizable pieces without even trying.

I stood there in the T-Mobile store admiring all the shiny colors and teeny buttons, picking up one, then the other and for a moment, I nearly bought one. Even now, I don’t know why I really thought this was a Necessary Evil.

I put them both away, thanked the patient yet befuddled clerk and walked out of there. I figured that if I was going to spend some dough on something that I really didn’t need, I’d buy an unnecessary new iPod.

And I got back up onto my high horse and resumed my Campaign of Terror Against Blackberries once more.

After I had Ben at age 20, I was left looking around and figuring out what the hell to do with my life. Professionally, I mean. I won’t bother getting into how PERSONALLY having a baby really crimps your style, especially when your kid is the one that screams like a banshee whenever he’s, well, awake.

I’d finished half a degree with a dual major in Bio/Chem, and had some pretty lofty Follow In The Males Of My Family’s Trek To Med School ideas of what I would do. Lofty, perhaps, but also the only damn thing I could think to do with my life. Whomever decided that 17/18 year olds should be in charge of choosing a profession is a wicked genius of a person (and also the reason majors like Media Studies are invented).

There’s a stupid commercial out there and the tagline is something like “Having a baby changes EVERYTHING.” I call it stupid, because I’m pretty sure that’s the most annoyingly obvious statement I’ve heard in my life, for a seasoned parent or not. But in the case of my schooling, it was irritatingly spot on.

Even if I’d been able to get into med school, which is either highly or only slightly laughable, as a single mother, I was aware that something was going to have to give. And if I’d chosen school, my son would be without a real mother at home (although I could have gotten a life-sized cut out of my picture and insisted that it follow him around creepily watching him as he went about his day), until he was approximately 26 years old.

Figuring I’d take my chances on extra-massive therapy bills for him later on (mental note: deposit money into Future Therapy Account every time I tell The Internet about my kid), I buckled down and made my choice: Ben.

Which left me with another choice: what the shit was I supposed to do now? I had to finish A degree in SOMETHING, and preferably something I could, oh, I don’t know, get a salary upon graduation WITHOUT asking if they wanted fries with that.

And as I saw it, my future was a toss-up between teaching and nursing. Neither of which were anything I’d ever considered as actual career options before then, so I chose what I considered to be the lesser of two evils. For approximately 12 minutes.

Yes, my friends, it’s true: I considered becoming a teacher for about 12 minutes. I even went as far as to try and say “I’m going to be a TEACHER” out loud. It was when I couldn’t contain my laughter AFTER that statement that I reconsidered my initial thought. The thought of me as a teacher was as laughable as the thought of me as a nurse.

I have the highest regard for teachers, really, I do. They’re tasked with wrangling OUR CHILDREN (or at least the children we know) all day long, and trying to teach them as they bounce off the walls like monkeys.

I pictured myself standing there in front of The Youth Of America, trying in vain to get the kids to stop eating each others’ boogers, my cardigan (I’d have to wear a cardigan if I became a teacher, this I knew) stained and buttoned incorrectly, my eyes puffy from a long night of drinking to make the voices go away, and I knew I just couldn’t do it.

This weekend, the care of 7 of The Youth Of America in my incapable hands, was like a vision into The Future That Could Have Been, and I hated every moment of it. As soon as we got there, the incessant questioning began. It’s like the kids could sense who was least equipped to handle their weird questions and glommed onto it.

“Why aren’t you serving pizza?” (the party was at 2:30 PM)
“Why are the cupcakes green?”
“I thought there would be more kids here” (me too, sweetheart, me too)
“Can we go to Pizza Hut?”
“Is Ben’s baby (points at Alex) a girl?”
“Why isn’t he a girl?”
“What’s his name?”
“Why’d you choose that name?”
“Are you having another baby?”
“Is it going to look like Ben?”
“Can I have some more money?”
“Can I have some more money NOW?”
“Why is that called air hockey?”

This was pretty much all I heard for the last 30 minutes of the party (thank you moon bounce for making them be quiet for an hour and a half), and while 30 minutes sounds like no time whatsoever, I found myself wishing that I had thought to bring a telephone number list to call their parents to pick them up EARLY. See, I’m not so patient. Or teacherly.

So, to all of the teachers out there, Aunt Becky salutes you. I consider you to be among America’s Finest; standing in the trenches and educating Our Youth while I hide at home. Away from the questions I can’t answer.

What job would YOU be unable to do, my Internet peeps?

Things haven’t been exactly easy for me in the past year or so, and while I’m remiss to talk about them here, because honestly, every time I put up some whiny “woe is Aunt Becky” post, I’m immediately annoyed by it. Then, because I happen to have some of the best readers in the world, you guys come over and try and make me feel better, which leads to a Wayne’s World-esque “I’m not worthy!” in my head.

Ranting and complaining just isn’t something I do well, so I don’t really bother. If I’m not posting one of two things is happening:

1) I’m having hot, hot sex (shut up. It COULD happen)

or

2) I’m not feeling it, dawg (is it just me pining for American Idol to come back? Probably).

I’m slowly picking myself up off the ground, dusting myself off and trying once again to pee rainbows and sunshine rather than hatorade and spite, and it’s working. Mostly.

But nowhere is my Mind Slippage more evident than apparently in the realm of cakes. Yes, that’s right, I said cakes. My eldest turned 7 last month, and due to a number of incredibly boring reasons, we waited until this weekend to have his Kids Party. Mainly because the last thing I want to do is host a party for a bazillion 7 year olds. Or something.

Normally, most of the thrill of having a big party for me lies in the almighty Cake Selection. You see, despite not really caring for the taste of cake, I happen to have a bit of a love affair with fancy cakes. Like, I kind of want to marry fancy cakes and make cute ickle cake babies. Or something. It’s always been with great gusto that I selected a cake for Ben’s birthday (also: the first time I alone hosted a large party. With or without beer), and great pride that I unveiled it to my guests who probably didn’t give a crap.

Case and point, the first cake that’s made it’s way into my iPhoto gallery.

Okay, so the second cake isn’t as cool, but so what?

And Alex’s first birthday this year…

Is that a….

It totally is! That dirty bitch!

I realize that this is a somewhat poor representation of all the Cakes I’ve Loved And Served, but I’m unable, without major work like lifting my fat ass off this chair and into another one, to show you the catalogue of other awesome cakes I’ve bought. So just PRETEND that you’re seeing a whole ton of pictures mmkay?

Well, this year, I was going to get another bomb-diggity cake for Ben’s birthday party, only to be seen by 7 year old eyes for the sugar content and not the amazing artistry that had gone into it’s creation, but, well, I just didn’t. I took the easy way out and went to Target, pretty much blindly selected a cake (cakes get far less cool for older kids, let me tell you) and picked it up today.

And…it’s hideous. Simply hideous. Awful, even. Don’t believe me?

I mean, after half-watching about 1,000 soccer games I’m appreciative that they got the ethnicities right:

But hey, at least he likes it. Loves it, is more like it. Even though the characters are GROWN MEN and not kids like I thought they’d be (no one to blame but myself here). I mean, hello, creepy Uncle Pervy men here. I’m shocked you can’t quite make out The Bulge in their shorts.

And I can be sure to be the parent that everyone hates when their precious kids come home covered in green goo.

Now, I’m not the most etiquette savvy person I know. In many instances, I’ve had to actually consult Miss Manners (dot) com to find out what people are supposed to do in the matters of weddings that were supposed to be weddings but weren’t actually weddings because no one got married for real, and then they broke up and didn’t give back the gifts and now are getting remarried to different people, do I send a gift?

And when I, myself, am planning some bigger event for myself or others, I often take a sneak peek into Etiquette Hell to see how people react to things done in poor taste. Sometimes, I’m shocked by the audacity of the bride and groom (for example) and other times, I’m completely taken aback that someone would take the time to be offended by such things as “not having a receiving line” at the wedding reception (I didn’t have one and I’m not sorry. I hate those things).

It’s safe to say that without having thrown a baby shower, but after throwing most any other kind of party that you’d send invitations to, I have learned a fair bit about the whole situation.

Namely, how people don’t bother fucking RSVP-ing like proper guests.

(in the interest of full disclosure, I feel that I must tell you that I have been The Bad Guy and not properly RSVP-ed to a wedding or two. But eventually, I always RSVP. Typically when things in my life are so incredibly chaotic that I can barely function to put on a clean shirt, let alone remember to send back that wee little card like a proper guest. It happens, and I do allow for some of that.)

I’ll never forget when I had my own wedding, I got back at least 4 or 5 cards telling me that “They” weren’t coming. Who is this elusive “They,” you ask? I HAVE NO CLUE. I got back some BLANK RSVP cards. Never did figure out who “They” were.

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Since Ben was a baby, I’ve thrown him parties for his birthday. We’ve had the White Trash cook-out/kegger, we’ve done proper parties without the beer, and up until last year, I only invited adults. I don’t have a ton of friends with kids (understatement of the year) so I just invite my friends. Works out well.

But when Ben was turning 6, he decided that what he REALLY wanted was a party with his school friends. Something that I’d been avoiding because I don’t really know WHAT I’d do with a roomful of screamy 6 year olds. It actually sounds like something out of my worst nightmares. So I did the next best thing: I rented out a room at a kid’s museum and had the party there.

Scratched cornea be dammed, I filled out each and every one of those stupid invitations by hand, carefully writing down all the instructions so that there would be no confusion (mental note: have the computer do the work next time). I invited all the kids in Ben’s class (all 19 of them), I did it a month in advance, and I waited.

Of the 19 or so kids (plus about 3 that he knew from outside of school), I heard back from perhaps 6-7 of them. Assuming that some may show even without properly RSVP-ing, I went to that party with the best of intentions. The result? All of the other kids whose parent’s hadn’t called didn’t show.

Charming.

This year, we had Ben’s birthday a full month after his actual birthday since August 20 falls right on the cusp of when kids are going back to school, and how annoying is THAT as a parent to have a party 2 days before school starts? TOTALLY ANNOYING. I expected that many more kids would be able to at least INFORM me that they wouldn’t be coming.

Har-dee-har-har-har.

I’m only annoyed on principle, since the place that Ben’s party is being held (moon bounce, people. How cool is that?) was a package UP to 15 kids, so it’s not a head count kind of place. I’m annoyed on principle, yet I’m still annoyed. It’s not like these parents KNEW that it didn’t really matter if they RSVP-ed or not, they just chose to ignore the invite completely. Which, having dragged my son to all of their kids’ parties, I know that they know EXPLICITLY how annoying this can be.

So, who is in for eating this damn ugly cupcake-cake thing I bought for more than double the kids that will be coming? YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.