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.

Apparently I have had sinus issues for years. My mother first noticed when she came to visit and she was forced to listen to me trying to clear my sinuses in the shower. She may have had to go downstairs to avoid getting ill. I tell you this not to gross you out but to, well, okay, I guess gross you out.

I’ll stand in the shower with scalding water pouring over my face, just waiting to feel it clear so I can breathe. So when I finally decided to seek medical attention and the liberal prescription of antibiotics which will probably one day result in me getting a cold and dying of pneumonia because my body can’t fight it, I remained skeptical. I’m not all healthy, healthy, but I don’t even take tylenol for a headache. Probably because I never get headaches.

I took the antibiotic for 9 days and nothing. Then I succumbed to internet peer pressure/assvice and decided to take the steroids I was prescribed. Actually my mother told me to take the steroids so I did.

Life without steroids: It’s not you, it’s me.
Life with steroids: It’s all YOU, you a@#$#$%.

I have noticed several things while on steroids. First, Roger Clemens, you lying sack of crap. Stop saying you didn’t KNOW you were on steroids. Since steroids, I have installed 100 feet of shelving, sanded 100 feet of shelving, prepped 100 feet of shelving with wood conditioner and stained 100 feet of shelving. In 1 hour. Derek took me to The Depot and made me saw 100 feet worth of trim for 100 feet of shelving. He left me in the trim department and came back to me sawing 5 pieces of trim at a time. Singing along with the country music.

Had I a VW bug, I would have already taken it apart and put it back together. The flip side is, I have noticed what a fantastic mother I am. When I am not on steroids. Before steroids, my children made me so insane I was constantly wanting to kill myself. Now? I want to kill the kids. See? That’s good, right? I’m not scheduled to be left unattended with my children during the course of the prescription so no worries. Maribel comes to babysit me tomorrow.

I explained to my husband how I was feeling.

D: Oh, so you feel like a man does all the time?
K: What do you mean?
D: That violence will solve anything?
K: TOTALLY. I just want to kill everyone. Is this how you guys feel all the time?
D: Sometimes.
K: Dude.

The one thing I forgot? I bought the neti pot but I hadn’t actually used it. Since my shower tonight when I started to clear out my sinuses and I realized they actually go further than 1/2 inch below my eyes, I suddenly remembered The Pot.

My husband stood there watching me. As I poured the saline solution up into the crevices of my head, my husband began to speak. He didn’t just speak. He started to ask me questions.

“Is that going into your sinuses because it looks like it’s just coming out of your other nostril?”
“How does it feel?”
“Do you think it’s working?”

What’s odd about this is that my husband doesn’t speak. And he hasn’t asked me a question since he proposed to me. So why he would begin to interrogate me while I am trying to irrigate my sinuses without drowning is beyond me. Some would have found this humorous. Did I mention I am on steroids? In case you are wondering, he’s buried in the back yard now.

Dude.  The Bizarre Bazaar this past weekend.  What can I say?  Not even one remotely bizarre thing in the whole place.  270 booths of sweetness and goodness.  Make that 269 booths of sweetness and goodness. 

There was a little feistiness.  Besides the fact that 75% of my sales were maternity shirts.  No, I did not drink the water when I was in Richmond.  You southern girls are fun.  You girls, you know who you are….  Nothing like bonding over a little half-assed parenting and a small dose of inappropriate conversation.  And Beergirl?  Came on Friday and wore the brand new MNAC robe for a large portion of the afternoon.  Once she got it on, she didn’t want to take it off.  You wanna see it?  Here it is. 

It is by far the most comfortable robe you have ever, ever put on your body.  Not available on the website yet. And I only made 14 of them, so they may never make it to the website.   A bargain at $50.  And did you notice?  No MNAC.  It’s officially a robe for EVERYONE.  WooHOO!!   You’ll have to email me to find out how to get one.  From size small to women’s size XL.  I KNOW.  QUE LINDA!

The fair thing?  It’s a little odd.  I mean, some guy making soap will clear 5 figures in a weekend.  Don’t get that excited for me.  That didn’t even remotely happen over here.  But it’s cool.  But this is what people do for a living.  As I was packing up, I realized that I reeked of “rookie.”  There I was in the rain, piling up my crates in the back of the truck, cursing my father-in-law under my breath as I watched my fellow exhibitors load up their crap in retro-fitted vans and trailers and trucks.  Cursing my FIL because, when I had the money to buy an SUV, he gave me a come-to-Jesus speech about the greatness of my Volvo. 

Yeah, you get more than 4 crates into a Volvo.  Thus, The Husband’s truck.  No, I really like to climb up into the back of the truck to push the crates all the way to the back.  And then move everything around 500 times until I figure out how exactly to fit everything in.  That mechanical gene?  That one that, when you see all those different shaped blocks, you fit them together to make a 6 bedroom house with a sauna, spa and indoor pool?  Not so much.  Meanwhile, at 11 minutes after the close of the show, the ladies with the 900 million hair bows on 37 display pieces have done inventory, shrink-wrapped everything, loaded their van and are now smoking a Marlboro before heading out to do a show in West Virginia.  Me?  It took me 1 hour and 47 minutes to decide whether to put the 22 size large shirts into a crate with a blue top or a crate with a black top.  I had 12 crates, people.  This is not rocket science.  I went to law school.  Seriously?

My husband is a saint.

Anyone who reads this blog realizes that.  Can you imagine being married to me?  It’ll be 2 in the morning and I will bolt out of bed, run down the stairs and make magnets.  Read email while The Boy takes a bowl filled to the BRIM with milk and cheerios up the stairs, except by the time he gets upstairs, there is no milk and cheerios in the bowl.

D:  WHAT is going on here?
K:  (reading email) Huh?
D:  There is a trail of milk all the way up the stairs and down the hall.
K:  (thinking good for The Boy to at least keep the cheerios in the bowl)  Really?
D:  And there is a puddle of milk here on the counter.
K:  (glaring at The Boy because despite it being HIS bad behavior, I’m getting chewed out for my failure to pay attention).  I already cleaned up one puddle.  There is another one?
D:  Didn’t you know what he was doing?

Of course I knew what he was doing.  But I am determined to make the Number One Parenting Mistake.  Inconsistency.  That’s me.  I told him 7 times that he couldn’t take a bowl of cereal upstairs to eat in his bed.  I cleaned up the first mess.  I told him to sit down to eat.

and then I gave up.  Because he doesn’t listen to me.  Because I have passed (from my gina-saur–thanks Cake Lady for that one) myself.  I don’t know how all of you people who have known me all of my life or who have been forced to ride in a car with me in the early hours of the day when I c-a-n-n-o-t-s-h-u-t-t-h-e-h-e-l-l-u-p did not ever beat my incessantly talking mouth.  I am exhausting.  Alway have been.  No caffeine, no sugar, doesn’t matter.  And now I am getting it back in spades.  I do NOT want a closing argument intended to sway me to see your most ridiculous side.  I am TIRED, people.  I am TIRED of listening to the 30 minute explanation for WHY I should allow you to take a bowl of cereal up to bed.  Tired.  Tired.  Did I mention I was tired? 

I just want to check my email.  I just want to respond to my email.  I just want to be at some small point where I feel like I am caught up on work or at least the end is in sight. 

Maybe my goal should be to see the end of toddlerdom in sight.  Oh, wait.  The Baby just toddled by with a dinner plate and a full set of utensils.  That light at the end of the tunnel?  We call that a mirage. 

(live near clifton, VA?  They are having their annual Spring Scavenger Hunt tomorrow at noon.  The Easter Bunny will be there.  I am TOTALLY sitting on his lap for a picture.  I hope I don’t break his leg…)

I need you to just not ask my why I am doing buttons related to brides.  All I can say is that Kimberle and The Babysitter will be happy.  My husband?  Not so much.  And while I was making this one, The Boy stole my glue stick and dug all the glue out.  But isn’t it the cutest thing ever? 

While I made this one, The Baby decided to wash his hands in the toilet.  There was extensive discussion regarding what was actually in the bowl when he started his little bathing, but his brother swears he FLUSHED the poop before his brother went on in.  Then these came in the mail.  Can you even imagine placing your martini glass on this cute little napkin?  When I went outside to pick up these boxes, The Baby decided to walk down the stairs.  Except he can’t walk.  And certainly not down stairs.  When he hit the landing, he was pissed.  Thank God for carpet.  The Boy?  Downloading Go, Diego, Go videos from YouTube on my phone and sending them to all the people on my contact list.  That and he rearranged all the icons on the front page.  I would change them back but I have no idea how to do it.  He tried to explain it to me but it was too complicated. 

When these arrived, Michael from my new wireless merchant service place was trying to give me excellent customer service by visiting at my place of employment.  Which is my living room.  It used to just be the basement, but I am now trickling up the stairs.  As Michael discussed discount rates and fees, The Baby began to unload Michael’s briefcase.  He called him “Dad” and stole his pen.  The Boy began jumping from the crates of shirts onto the top of the back of my chair.  every once in a while he missed.  And landed on my head.  The Boy then began to push The Baby around in the Little Tikes car at about 40 miles per hour.  It was only a matter of time before the big wipeout occurred and everyone was crying.  Michael?  Still trying to explain the process.  Me?  Offering Michael hard alcohol.  He graciously refused.    I decided not to hold it against him.

And aren’t these the cutest little hostess gift?  I’m hoping I can keep them away from The Boy.  And his father.  Those boys are FA-reaks when it comes to post it notes.

Oh, every single one of you that said, “I would have a party if I lived closer”–your ass is getting an email about hosting a party.  I just stick the party in a box and send it to your house.  Even to Alabama.  Which has surprisingly enough, made MANY queries about throwing parties.  You southern girls.  You know what’s going on.  Have a party now before I end up on Oprah and then you have to get on my list.  Now wouldn’t THAT suck?  Don’t you want to be the person who had the Mommy Needs a Cocktail Party BEFORE the rest of the cool kids catch on.

OK, I don’t actually put the party in a box.  I put the shirts in the box and YOU have to make the party.  You can do it.  I have faith in you.  

And now all those short sleeve shirts and tank tops available at Baby Brewing?  Mommy Needs a Cocktail?  Mommy Needs a Beer?  Mommy Needs a Glass of Wine?  And all those shirts only available at the Mommy Needs a Cocktail Party?  Available in 2XL.  Still that clingy style, but now with more room.  Roomier styles coming soon.