So I'm Sarcastic...

Is that truly a bad thing? And besides, I prefer to be called witty.

My humor is sometimes sarcastic. I blame it all on my husband and his family, where sarcasm is the humor de jour. Spend too much time around them and you get drawn in, too. And I married into it, so where does that leave me??

My son had a birthday party today. He's two. The big... umm... two. Yes, yes, on Independence Day exactly two years ago, I was saying, "Please, dear God, if you have any mercy let me have this baby today!!!" Which, of course, in our sarcastic family meant that he came bright and early the next morning. At least he didn't dilly-dally around once he decided he needed to be born.

My mother-in-law attributes my short labor to all the walking I did trying to induce myself. My husband attributes my short labor to all the... ummm.... brisk activities we engaged in trying to bring about labor. Some of my friends say it was the 10 days of pre-labor contractions I had, and some claim it was the entire gallon of parsley tea I drank. So what if that sounds disgusting? It was, but at that point I was grasping at straws and I embraced every new "for-sure" labor inducer that I came across. My due date had come and gone by almost a week, and I was in so much pain!

So today we celebrated with friends this strange development from baby to kid. That wasn't in the manual for babies, and it's kinda like realizing that your cute little kitten is going to become a cat. It just makes you sit back and go, "What the heck am I getting myself in to?"

I didn't sign up for this whole kid thing, you know. I signed up for the baby thing, and he was supposed to stay that way. My parents always threatened to make me wear books on my head to keep me little... I wonder if that actually works...

Luckily as of now I have escaped the baby bug. You know, that pesky little thing that bites when you realize your kids are growing up, and you think, "I sure would like another baby..." As if we're still in denial about the whole baby-kid transition.

There's too much to do before baby #3 is born. I'm looking at two years minimum to get it all sorted out. I need to finish my education, become a Director (preferably very stable, where I've opened in other countries as well), we need a new car and to fix up the house, and we need to get out of debt. I told my husband that I wanted to be six months away from getting out of debt completely before I would consider getting pregnant. I want it to be a sure thing. No more albatross for us!

The party went well. We had cupcakes and a sandcastle cake. I put brown sugar around the bottom, sprinkled a minimum of powdered sugar on the top, and filled the middle with strawberries and blueberries. I will post a picture tomorrow, Bridget, I promise! The theme was Animal Planet, and so there were pictures of animals making funny faces on everything. Also on the menu were the kid-friendly favorites of pineapple-BBQ sausage, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato salad, kettle corn, crackers with cream cheese and Pickapeppa, and a lovely summer fruit salad that had white peaches, apricots, plums, apples, pears, bananas, and grapes. We didn't really play games, just let the kids play on their own, did cake and present time early, and then let the kids play with the birthday boy's new toys. Luckily one doesn't have to do much to make a toddler's birthday fun.

Totally random thought: I should post an old English essay here. I had to write a comment on some Poe, and one of the options was to write a story that was similar. I'd love to get your opinions on it, since apparently it was quite a hit at my Mom's school. I'll have to look for it. I tend to be highly critical of my own work, so I didn't think it was all that great, and reading it sometimes is embarrassing. Sort of like, "I wrote that? Oh, geez. How corny."

AND... I'm helping to plan a wedding. Well, as much as I'll be allowed! Happy happy, joy joy!!! I love weddings. I hope I don't try to take control, because I tend to get excited and have a lot of ideas. And sometimes they don't go over, and my excitement deflates like a popped helium balloon. KABAM! Oh, well, that just means I need to be careful about how pushy I get. You can pray for me if you'd like, because the last thing I want to do is turn this into something stressful for the bride!!!