First off let me just say that if one of you lived here and we had a play date, I’m sure it would be fine.

I? Am not a play date type of a mom. I am spoiled. This is what comes from your best friends having kids at the same times as you. Built in best friends, second generation style. No need for silly things like random play dates with parents you don’t know.

I should have known, should have remembered; that I’m not a play date person. I should have never said yes. This woman, whose demon spawn…I mean child, is in Baileys class, has been asking me to have a play date for a while. I don’t hang out at the school much. I mean, I volunteer, but I don’t spend the whole time my kid is in pre-school talking outside with the other mothers. Some of them do and that’s fine, I’m just not one of them. Because when my girls are in school, I tend to have very important things to do. Like blogging.

So, this woman had been asking me for a play date and kept telling me that our girls play together so nicely, so I finally agreed. We went over to her house on Friday afternoon.

First, her demon child kept hitting my kid. Oh she had a cookie today, was the mom’s response. Ok, because that is a great response to your kid whacking mine upside the head. Don’t bother to stop her from doing it a few more times. A child who has had a cookie, can’t ever be told to knock it off, I suppose.

Then she started talking, non-stop. The mom, not the kid. The kid is behind in speaking. Most likely because her mom talks incessantly. About absolutely nothing. No joke, she’d ask me a simple question; like, how old is your baby? Then she’d interrupt me two words in to tell me about some random story about her life. Because her kids were almost five months once and they… I don’t know, ate a lot? Then it led to a story about when she was a baby and then about her mom’s life. Also, every story somehow led to Scouts. I guess her son is in scouts. She must be the most annoying scout mom ever.

Small tangent here: I hate scouts. Every one of them, girl, boy, cub, whatever. What they stand for; their homophobic attitude; but mostly, I hate the cookies. I know, I may be the only person in the world who hates girl scout cookies, but I do. I despise that they are at every grocery store in the state right now, hawking those nasty cookies. Dude, if I wanted your cookies, I would have bought them from the 6 little girls in my neighborhood who each came by and rang my door bell early Sunday morning, for six weeks in a row. No, I don’t want your dam cookies, now let me in the god dam store. End tangent.

So, I heard about the scouts. Then she went and on about her Unity church and how amazing it is. How rainbows shoot out of every ones asses after they go there. Then how she just can’t believe we don’t go to church. We don’t go to church. Period. We don’t belong to a religion. Period. And what the heck is a Unity church anyway? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t care if I know. If I was planning on choosing a religion it would be one of the ones in my family.

I started getting desperate, so I sent out this Tweet from the bathroom:

Somebody save me. I am in playdate hell. Can one of you DM me and i dont know be in labor or have ebola? Something. Please 3:45 PM Feb 20th from txt

Then nothing. Crickets. Chirp.

I waited, hoping someone would see it. But nope, nobody was on to see it. Then I sent a text to my BFF Kate, saying pretty much the same thing. She texted me back, I told you not to do play dates. You never listen.

Am looking for a new BFF by the way.

Eventually we left and as we did, Bailey says to me, Mommy why did we go there? I don’t even like that girl.

Great kid, just great. You couldn’t have told me that earlier? Play dates are not for the weak at heart and they are definitely not for me.

Just when I think I’ve got a handle on this lovey depression, it come to pay me a visit. I’ve been a bit weepy the past few days and I thought I knew why. Turns out it’s just PMS. And my little friend, depression. At least I’m starting to notice a pattern. Not that it makes it any more fun, or makes me feel any better. But at least it’s consistent.

Melancholy, it’s such a pretty word. A word out of a novel. A dramatic novel, but still. It’s such a nicer word than some of the others that could be thrown my way this week. Words like spaz, pain in the ass, whiny, crier, asshat. Although the one person who could throw some words my way, won’t. Because he’s not that dumb. He likes his cups not thrown at his head, thank you very much.

I don’t really want to blog, I don’t really want to talk, I don’t really want to feel. I just want to curl up in a ball for a few days and sleep.

I force myself to do the things I don’t want to do. I’ve noticed I feel better faster if I do them. This works for me and me alone. I can’t say it would work for anyone else, nor would I bother to try. But this space helps me. If I come on here and say, I’m having a suck ass couple of days, I feel better. If I call my friends or chat with friends online and say, I’m sad; I feel better. Yesterday I had to force myself to play with my children. Was I short with them, yes. Did I yell at my dog last night for acting like a dog, yes. Did I make my husband want to throw a cup at my head, yes I did.

So here I am. Me, putting myself out there once again. Showing my insides to the world, just hoping that writing these words help in some way. If you haven’t seem me around these past few days, this is why. If I’m not around for the next few days, know this is why. I am okay, I truly am. I’m just feeling kinda blah.

- Krispy Kreme donuts are awesome.

- All five us in one room, was really not that fun. We all need more space than that. Plus, all of them snore.

- Issa did not sleep the entire trip.

- Saki and beer are not a good combination. Just in case you were wondering.

- Issa is a lightweight drinker, just in case you were wondering.

- If spinny is not a word, it is now, because that’s what my room was like on Saturday night.

- No water, tons of caffeine, crying for days and too much alcohol make Issa a hung over grouchy individual. That was on Sunday morning and today, I don’t feel that much better.

- I’ve never been in a hotel in Vegas, where I could hear the people in the room next to me. This time though, I could. Lets just say, they had a lot of fun in the bathroom. Way too much fun in the bathroom.

- Going to Vegas with my children is a completely different experience. They thought it was so exciting. All combined, there were seven children, ages seven and under. The baby loved all the light and sounds, the kids loved the non-stop entertainment and sugar. I did things that I never would have done. M&M World was a big hit. A big thank you to the lovely Maura for the suggestion. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend going. I mean, unless you for some strange reason don’t like M&M’s and then I’m not sure I can know you anymore.

- Wedding ceremonies in Vegas are fast. In my next life, this is the way I’ll be getting married. No drama, no big deal. Just a quick ceremony and then cake. Oh wait, there wasn’t cake. Now I see the flaw in my plan.

- Vacations planned last second cost butt loads of money.

- The last second vacation: is worth every single cent.

- I didn’t gamble at all, although Logan lost every cent we had brought for it. Sunday morning, I handed him the baby, as we were checking out and I told him I wanted to play $20 in the Wheel of Fortune machine. Two pulls and I won. I won $300 over the amount of money, that this entire weekend had cost us. I won it all back; plane tickets, hotel room, food, snacks, shoes for my child, because I forget to pack her any and she was wearing snow boots, the swim suits we purchased, everything. I gave the $300 to Chris and Steph as a wedding present. I mean really, what do you give people who have been living together eight years, when they get married? Cash works.

That’s all I’ve got in me today. The kids are at home. I really needed them to go to school today. Like, I really needed them to go to school today. All they’ve done since yesterday afternoon is argue with each other and with me.

Yesterday when I went to pick up Bailey at pre-school I somehow found myself committed to making cupcakes for their Valentines Day party. Back in the day, I used to go and buy cupcakes for my kids school stuff. I even bought the good ones from Sprinkles Cupcakes. Have you ever had sprinkles cupcakes? They are too die for. If you ever have the chance, please try one. But back in those days I had a pay check…man I miss the pay check days….anyhow, I’d go and buy the lovely expensive cupcakes, no problem. Everyone was happy and the world went along just fine. Time has changed though and today I make cupcakes. (Because honestly, there isn’t a Sprinkles Cupcakes around here.) I made 62 cupcakes to be exact. No mix, by hand. With a recipe from Martha Stewart, the Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes recipe.

But I am no Martha Stewart. I can bake, in fact I am a better baker than a cook. But still, it’s not something I do often. Unless the slice and bake cookies count, which I doubt they do. These cupcakes are not so easy either. They are very detailed. The frosting is the killer. It has real strawberries in it.

So the girls and I made cupcakes. Loads and loads of cupcakes. There was flour split, eggs dropped and milk somehow missed the bowl about four times. My girls, they love to cook. They get that from their grandmother, because it sure as hell isn’t from me. But they got my absolute inability to use less than every dish in the house while cooking. Also the clean as you go gene, they are missing that one too. Then we made frosting, a gazillion tons of frosting. But the frosting doesn’t really go on the cupcakes easily. Then the red hearts fell off. Then we re-put them on, basically squishing them into the frosting.

After we were done, my BFF Kate had the kids make Valentines at her house, which is great since I am not crafty. The ones in the box would have been more than fine, if I was doing them. In fact I send them to Kate’s house often, specifically so they can do that crap at her house. (I’m not kidding. I’ve banned scissors from my house until Bailey stops cutting up full pieces of paper into shreds and leaving it all over the floor.) While they were gone I sampled a cupcake or two (have to make sure they are not poison) and cleaned frosting off of every surface in my entire freaking kitchen. Also, I’m pretty darn sure that Harrison is not allergic to milk or strawberries, because I’m sure he got a taste of frosting, since he was rolling around the kitchen floor. What can you do? He’s a third kid. He’s lucky we didn’t hand him a BBQ rib the second he was born.

Later that night when Logan came home, he and Bailey had the funniest conversation. I am still laughing my ass off at it. The girls were sitting at the table doing “worksheets”. I put that in parentheses because it’s not real worksheets. Well it is, but not from the school. My kids go to a choice school. Basically they don’t believe worksheets need to be sent home as homework, which I fully agree with. When Morgan gets homework, it’s more hands on, more creative and not mind numbing. However, my kid is um special. I mean that in the best way, really I do. But people, she makes up her own worksheets. For her and for Bailey. Different ones each week. Bailey loves it most days. So anyway they were sitting at the able doing worksheets and I was doing yet another load of dishes when Logan walked in. She said all of this to him, without ever looking up from her sheet.

Logan: Babe, what’s for dinner?

Bailey: Daddy, I think you should buy a new question.

Logan: (laughing) Oh yeah, what question should I have asked?

Bailey: You should say, honey, where am I taking you for dinner.

Logan: Thanks little girl. (Yes we call her little girl. Morgan will answer to big girl and the baby looks up if you say, the boy. They all have numerous nicknames.) Ok, honey, where am I taking you for dinner.

Me: Good question. I’m not sure, but somewhere with wine sounds like a plan.

Bailey: Daddy, that will be two dollars please.

Logan: What, why?

Bailey: Because you bought my question. Now pay up.

Logan: Please.

Bailey: And thank you.

Me: Babe, the girls an extortionist, but you’d better pay her. Because she’s right, you needed to change that question.

Later my BFF Emmy called me and after I’d explained my entire day to her, she said, you know you can buy that mix from Williams-Sonoma right? And you can, you can buy the mix for Sprinkles Cupcakes at Williams-Sonoma. However, as I so nicely told her, that would have been helpful six hours earlier.

By the way, today is not Friday. I didn’t know that until I was completely done. So I have 64, no 58, um 54 cupcakes sitting in my fridge. burp.