Raising a kid is part joy and part guerilla warfare - Ed Asner

Well, it happened. My sister came to town with the kids. They stayed with my folks (who live two hours away from me). I got to town Friday evening after work. The first thing I saw were all kinds of chalk drawings in the driveway. Not hopscotch boards and smiling suns (which is what you normally see), but body outlines and notes to aliens. I see a little bit of counseling in my nephew's future.

I walked into the house I grew up in, and it was eerily quiet. "Hello?" I called out. SILENCE. Hmmm. As I walked into the livingroom, I was stunned. My mom is a tidy woman, but her house was wrecked. It looked like it was ransacked by a gang of 4 year olds. There were toys everywhere. I noticed pieces of cut up banana on the couch, some on the coffee table...there was a teeny sock abandoned in the middle of the kitchen floor. I saw the TV remote on top of the baker's rack and a half eaten granola bar shoved into the flower centerpiece on the coffee table. If I didn't know better, I would have thought a group of children came in, trashed the house, kidnapped my parents and dragged them to Chuck E. Cheese.

Right about then I heard a car pull up outside and what sounded like 15 car doors close. The front door opened and it was a whirlwind of my parents, my sister, two pizzas, and at least 27 kids. Or just my two nephews. But it all happened so fast, with the screams and the hugs and the kisses, I wasn't really sure what was going on. I remember taking my watch off and throwing it at someone, thinking I was being mugged. Turns out, it was just my 6 year old nephew, giving me some rib tickles.

Things eventually calmed down and I have to say, Easter was a success this year. My dad, in his ultimate craziness, made two types of meat. Thankfully, neither meat-type was rabbit, and if you knew how redneck my dad could be, you would realize what a blessing that was. By 9am Easter morning, both kids had gone through their wall-climbing sugar highs and had crashed. Bits of tin foil wrappings were all over the floor like confetti. At 2pm, everyone started showing up for the early dinner. My stepbrother stunk like grease and a gym locker (stuffed with a dead hooker). I don't know how I picked the short straw, but I got stuck sitting next to him at the table. It really sucked, especially the part when he ripped a SBD (silent but deadly). I'm not sure I can describe how raunchy that fart was, but I'll try. If you could imagine a homeless man's fart, the kind of homeless man who only eats 3-day old hamburgers and poop, that pretty much sums it up. Thankfully, we had finished the meal by that time but it was still enough to make me want to punch him in the throat. I think a little bit of stank got in my mouth. I left the table.

But now it's all over and my sister is back in Arizona with her crazy little kids. I have to admit, I miss the little buggers. And it got me thinking about having children myself. I don't know, maybe I'll buy a kid and see how it works out. If it clashes with my lifestyle, I'll take it out into the country and set it free. In the meantime, though, I am keeping a close watch on myself and making sure I'm not "collecting" two or more of anything.

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.

Today I turn 33 years old. Pretty uneventful, I know. I'm at that awkward age where I'm old enough to have some hefty baggage, but not quite old enough to stop giving a shit. Aside from my earth-shaking birth 33 years ago, let me share what else happened on this glorious day...

2010 - BP Oil spill eruption in the Gulf of Mexico
1999 - Columbine Shooting
2002 - My grandmother died. ** To this day, I'm convinced it was out of spite because I used to kick her ass in cards when I was a kid.
1889 - Adolf Hitler was born. You have to admit though, the man had ambition.

Not every year had a tragedy. In 2003, my birthday fell on the same day as Easter Sunday. That was a fun dinner. In the middle of carving the ham, my uncle said, "HEY! It's your birthday today!" At least he remembered...eventually. I guess some dude rising from the dead trumps me being born in the first place. Whatever, Jesus was always a show off. Look where that got him.

But in all seriousness, birthdays are overall a good time. I love seeing what people get me. This year, my boyfriend got me new running sneakers and a two year gym membership. I'll let that one sink in. Now, if he surprises me with a bottle of diet pills, I might have to kill him in his sleep. As luck would have it, though, HIS birthday happens to be tomorrow...and he's getting a sleeping bag and the cold shoulder from ME. On the flip side, my parents hooked me up with a mongo gift card for my all-time FAVORITE steak house. The need to feed strikes again. It was a nice balance to the "get fit" gifts. But it also reminded me of the time my mom picked up my birthday cake. It read, "Happy Birthday Jill!! " on it. It was really sweet, but my name isn't Jill. That's my sister...who is 3 years older and lives 2500 miles away. Clearly, I am the favorite child. Ahhh, a mother's love...it's palpable.

Speaking of my sister, she's coming to town with her kids tomorrow (keep an eye open for THAT blog). My only (anticipated) gripe is that I've been delegated to bunk with my 6 year old nephew, and my dog. The last time we had this sleeping arrangement, I was woken up at 1am, then 2:30am, then 4am, by my nephew and the dog. They were playing together, bouncing around the bed, having a GRAND old time. That's when I discovered how hard it is to yell in a whisper. You just can't get that to translate to a bouncy 3 year old. Or a terrier.

In any case, I'm going back to my "birthday celebrations." Basically, my intentions are to eat a big, greasy burger for dinner, drink way too much Bud Light, and watch Clint Eastwood movies. Seriously. Even I can't make this up, and I've bullshitted you people in several blogs thus far.

So, I'm taking this 33 year old ass and my 33 year old eggs and I'm going to get this party started. Thanks for all the birthday wishes, and for those of you who forgot - Thanks for nothing. (ooo, burn)

Attention: I am NOT pregnant. I'm just Pro-Choice.

It's been a hell of a past few weeks, let me tell you.

I visited my folks over the weekend. What a circus that turned out to be. My dad is partially senile and my mom is partially deaf. Put them at the same dinner table and it's like trying to teach a blind kid how to drive...a stick shift...in the snow...up hill. I'll spare you the details (they are hard to follow anyway), but all I know is, I was exhausted by the end of dinner. My sister is coming in for Easter with her kids. I gave her fair warning about the parental chaos and all she did was laugh at me. You know what I say to that? Go ahead and laugh, "J". I'm not going to translate a damn thing for you when you're in town. You think your 2-year old's babbling is hard to understand? Good luck with mom and dad.

Speaking of misunderstandings, I made the mistake of telling my mother this very true, very unfortunate story about myself: Up until about 5 years ago, when I would hear someone use the term, "F bomb," I thought the F meant "fart," as in, "Fart Bomb." That said, I was having conversations like this:

Other person: "Oh man, you should have been in that meeting! It got crazy! Joe dropped an F bomb and everything!"

Me: "Get outta here, that's hysterical! You know, I was at Wal-Mart the other day and I dropped a super loud F bomb in the check out line!"

You can imagine my mortification (is that a word? It is now) to find out that for ten years of my adult, professional life, I was dropping a totally different F bomb than my colleagues...and bragging about it. I consider myself to be a fairly smart individual (or at least 'relatively'). Why it never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, all these public F bombs I was being told about weren't really FART bombs, that people generally don't brag about their flatulence, never crossed my mind. I'm glad I finally figured it out. I may be a slow learner, but I'm a learner none-the-less.

It seems as though misunderstanding runs in my family. My 6 yr old nephew freaked a little last week when he thought you *had* to get married when you got older. This clearly put a damper on his views of adulthood up to this point, since a few months ago he found out he could curse all-he-wanted when he turned 35. In any case, he went so far as to ask my sister if "Aunt C" (that's me) was married. Much to his relief, he found out I wasn't. As a result, he is officially my new, favorite person in the whole world: The only person to think it's cool that I'm 33 and NOT married, never been and it's a toss up if I ever will. But to finish his story, when my sister asked him why he did not want to get married, he replied, "Because I don't know all the girls in the world!" Sounds to me like we've got a mini-Wilt Chamberlain in the making. I can't wait to see how his story develops. I can only hope it doesn't end with antibiotics and child support.