Oh.  My.  Gosh. 

That’s all I should really say about last night’s Mommy Needs a Glass of Wine Event at the Winery at La Grange.  Or maybe I should start from the beginning…

I called Melissa around 4:30 yesterday afternoon to see what the plan was.  Because if you don’t have a plan, checking for one 2 hours before a party is an excellent time to make one. 

M:  I need to wash my hair.  And don’t be tweeting or telling the rest of the Internet that.
K:  I wouldn’t do that (frantically tweeting it). You are fine.
M:  You don’t know that.  I need to wash my hair.
K:  I have a shirt for you.  We’ll just shop from our personal store in the back of my truck.  It’s not just a clean shirt, it’s a NEW shirt.

The power of persuation, she is my super power.  Screw the hair, thirty minutes later we were on our way to drop off a chocolate fountain at someone’s wedding reception and then off to the party.  Except after we dropped it off,  she started bitching and moaning about her dirty head.  Which, people, did not look dirty to me. But I guess your head is your personal issue. I started bitching about needing coffee. 

M:  Let’s just stop at Target and get a blow dryer. 
K:  And we are gonna go where with that?  Are you gonna pick up a bottle of shampoo and then I’ll wash your hair in the sink at the vineyard?  “Hi, we are here for the party.  We’re just gonna go wash her hair and we’ll be RIGHT back?”

My super power of persuasion?  Not as great as I thought it was.  Because we find ourselves in the parking lot of a shopping center.  Where there is a Hair Cuttery.

K:  Dude.  It costs like $12 to get your hair cut at Hair Cuttery.  It has to be practically free to get your hair washed.

The Chocolate Fountain Fairy Godmother went in to bum a clean head at HC and I went into Starbucks to get us drinks.  With her Starbucks card.  I ordered a Skinny Mocha Triple Latte for me and a Triple Latte for her.  Except I had never had a SML before and when I tasted it, it was vile.  I walked back to Hair Cuttery and handed her the Skinny Mocha.

M:  What’s this?
K:  You’re gonna love it. 

It took her about 30 minutes to realize that I had ordered it for myself, reviled it and pawned it off on her.  All on her Starbuck’s card.  She realized this after she came out of Hair Cuttery with a clean, but slightly funky blow out and she had driven us 11 miles past the vineyard because we couldn’t agree on directions.  About two minutes later….

K:  Thank God I got us triple shots.  It’s clear we are going to need them.

There was what can only be described as a very.  pregnant.  pause.

M:  WHAT???
K:  What?
M:  This is a triple shot?  Tell me this doesn’t have three shots. (pointing to her near empty coffee cup).
K:  Hell, yeah, it does.
M:  You didn’t get me three shots.
K:  You need to stay awake?
M:  I haven’t told you I have a heart arrhythmia? I wonder how my cardiologist will feel about coming to the ER tonight….

Internet.  Am I the only person who thinks this information would have been helpful BEFORE I went into Starbuck’s? Because I am looking to have a good time and the ER does not fit into that equation. If I wanted to go to the ER, I would have just stayed home with the children for the evening.

She was fine. Big fat baby. What’s a little heart racing? We showed up at the vineyard late but we were laughing so hard tears were streaming down our cheeks. Her friend Barb came to help us and she was the best sales person I have ever had.  And then Kimberly showed up, which meant the party had arrived.   Fellow DC Metro Mom Blogger Andrea came with her friends and I got to meet all sorts of new people (HI, ELIZABETH AND AMY!!). I drank wine, ate amazing food, scarfed down a pound of strawberries dipped in the chocolate fountain and there was an incident with a woman eating our “for sale” Mommy Needs Chocolate bars. CFFG wore the Cocktail girl robe around all night and there are rumors of pictures of her on the picnic table sporting the martini glass.

I promise I shall never again forget my camera.  Or maybe some things are better left undocumented…

It starts. Mother’s Day is around the corner and suddenly everyone feels the need to quantify what a mom is worth and to worship at her altar. I used to think that Mother’s Day is bunk and that we should be worshiped on a daily basis, but let’s be honest here. At least we get one day a year. So we are tortured because invariably the kids will get sick or be cranky or fight and no one will properly perform and no one will get the memo that if Mother’s Day is about mothers, then why the hell are we spending it with our children, like we do the other 364 days of the year.

And then there are my child-free friends. I don’t even like to bring Mother’s Day up because I know how annoying it can be for the people without kids. Either by choice or by circumstance, it’s still annoying. I remember when I was single and people would wish me “Happy Mother’s Day.” Personally, I thought it was odd. It didn’t really offend me. I thought it was just weird.

What do you think?

So, in honor of all my girls who will be tortured by Mother’s Day, I planned to give you the latest in hilarious tees from Baby Brewing…

Auntie Needs a Cocktail

I have them. I just can’t get them up on Baby Brewing due to technical problems whereby I am tortured. So if you want one and you just can’t wait, go over and order a MNAC shirt in the size you want (they are the same font in the same size) and put it in the comments that you want an AUNTIE shirt instead. Available in black or brown, s,m,l,xl,2xl and in women’s sizes in black (16-18, 20-22, 24-26, 28-30) and also in black and brown tanks in s,m,l,xl, 2xl. We are calling it the ghetto rollout. But you girls deserve a little something for the crappy weekend too. WOOHOO!!

As a receptacle for preschooler vomit.

Three times.  Are my boobs really that big that he couldn’t have aimed in a different direction?

Mommy Needs a Shower.  I guess the school was right when they called to say that this morning The Boy walked into the classroom, laid down and fell asleep.  “We think you might need to come get him.”

At least he didn’t vomit on any teacher cleavage.  That would have seriously set me back on Teacher Appreciation Day.

Mommy Needs a Glass of Wine 

You have a funny feeling you just may be getting a vacuum for Mother’s Day.  Maybe you’ll be getting a lovely breakfast in bed, made by the tots.  Which is great, except you are probably going to have to clean up the kitchen yourself.  Why not spend Saturday, May 10, 2008 (also known as Mother’s Day Eve) without the kids?   

Join us for an amazing evening of wine tasting with food pairings, gourmet treats to dip in a fabulous chocolate fountain and fun friends, all in the amazingly beautiful setting of The Winery at

Take home hilarious tees and take home chocolate will be available for purchase.

And eye protection?  We spit on eye protection.

Another possible caption:  first and probably last time I will ever find The Husband mowing the lawn.

For reasons that are still eluding me, today we took our children to the wedding of our dear friends Matt and Deb. I have looked forward to this wedding for 6 weeks. I would like to say that it is because I was excited about the wedding but reality was that we were planning on leaving our children behind. Because who wants to take a one year old and a three year old to a wedding?

Liz wrote this post a week ago about being so hurt when a friend invited her to her child-free wedding. Liz is about to have a baby that will be a newborn at the wedding. She’ll be nursing the baby. Who will probably sleep the entire time. What’s the big deal with having a nursing baby at a wedding?

Except in my family, narrowing it down to nursing kids means that children up to the age of 4 could be attending. The comments were filled with comments like the bride will understand when she has kids and she’ll look back on it and realize her mistake.

This is where I confess that I had a child-free wedding. Sure my 4 nieces and nephews were in the wedding but at the end of the ceremony, even they were shipped off to the childcare we provided at my sister’s house. There were like 25 kids there. It was crazy. I was too cheap to feed the children at my reception.  I just figured that the allure of the pan-seared duck would be lost on the 5 year olds.  Go eat pizza already.  Only my husband’s best friend’s 2 year old stayed for the reception. Because, well, I don’t know why. As I read the post and read all the comments, I had a guilty thought.

I have two kids now and I am STILL glad I didn’t have kids at my wedding. Horrible person that I am. I knew it in my gut but it took the unfortunate “mix up” of today’s wedding to remind me why. I mean, we take our kids everywhere. Every trip we plan, we are all going. It’s ridiculous. The only times The Boy has spent the night away from both of us was the day we made his brother and the day his brother was born.  Which clearly means his father and I should never be left alone.  For heaven’s sake, leave the damn kids once in a while. Would it really kill us? So I was giddy at the thought of leaving them today. YIPPEE for me. Then BOO for me for getting stuck taking them. It took all of 2 seconds for it to all come rushing back as to why I am a proponent of the child-free wedding.

• Weddings are an opportunity to don your finest attire and highest heels so you look your best as you are chasing your violently screaming 1 year old through the vestibule while the string quartet plays Bach.
• The exact moment your adorable child appears to have been possessed by the devil will directly coincide with the exact time he begins throwing Bibles from pews onto the floor.  In case you are wondering, God loves that.
• There is no church large enough that your children wandering loudly through the halls will not be heard during the I Corinthians 13 reading.
• If your poor parenting is destined to catch up with you, you will find your husband and son in front of the church on a bench and your son won’t be wearing shoes. When you inquire about his, said child may say “Mom. I don’t need shoes. It’s a lovely day outside and my feet with be just fine in socks.” Except you are at a church. For a wedding. And your husband seems to be signing on to this logic. And what three year old talks like this?
• If you survive the wedding, which you never actually see because you had The Baby and ever since The Baby started walking, good luck getting him to sit still for 2 nanoseconds, you will still have a wedding reception to attend. Which will be a lot longer than 30 minutes.
• Nothing says drink in excess like an open bar with a closing time.
• In the division of children, it’s best to really hammer out responsibilities. Just because you say, “I’m going to the ladies room and you need to watch both boys,” and you receive a visual confirmation with the nod of the head, don’t assume that both children will be there when you return. You just might find The Baby hanging at the table full of hottie 15 year olds, trying to steal a soda. Odds are pretty good that it will take at least 2 minutes to find him and that will be the longest you have ever NOT known where The Baby is. The Baby will not have one bit of remorse and he will attempt to disappear at least 700 million times for the next 2 1/2 hours.
• You would carry your plate in your hand so you could eat and chase The Baby at the same time but then you wouldn’t have a hand for your beer.

Best part? At least I didn’t have to take care of The Boy. Now THAT was another story.