That paragraph went waaaaay off the rails there for a moment so let’s just remember I have limited spoons and social events (even the ones I attend as a guest) take spoons. The next sentence is going to startle you, so make sure your mouth is empty. Spit or swallow, I don’t care. Just don’t spray it out on your blog reading device. In nine days Coop is going to be two years old. I KNOW. REALLY. I KNOW. I’m just as shocked as you are right now.

There has been pressure to have a party, and I almost gave into the hype. Then I remembered Coop’s 1st birthday party and how I bought three new small plants to put in my pots out on my front patio. Because my guests would be offended if they walked up to my house and saw the three older potted plants. You know how perfectly normal women become bridezilla about their weddings? That is me throwing a party. I get anxious and that kicks in manic behavior and the next thing I know I’m too exhausted to enjoy the party but fuck yeah my baseboards are clean, motherfuckers.

Another aspect is paying for a bunch of people to come over and party. People eat food. I’ve love to say, “Don’t bring presents, just yourself and some food! Hurray for potluck parties!” But when my house is gluten and dairy free, plus Coop has artificial color issues. Then it becomes this clusterfuck of micromanaging a potluck which I’m fairly sure is the opposite of the definition of said luck of pot. So I channeled Pooh Bear’s famous THINK THINK THINK face and thinked up a think.
Egg loves going to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park Wild Animal Park. We get a membership every year from a family member for our anniversary. Many families in Southern California have passes because the annual ones are so damn cheap and you get both the San Diego Zoo Safari Park Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo. Sometimes people have parties at a regular park but that presents all these anxious scenarios about bathrooms (I NEED BATHROOMS) and shade and I’m going to be reincarnated as a very nervous and bitey Chihuahua. I’m sorry.

So I decided to have Coop’s party at the Wild Animal Park. Coop will love it and he has not even the smallest clue his birthday is soon. Egg will love it because it’s one of his favorite places. I won’t have to buy plants or scrub baseboards. If I get too tired I can rent an old person scooter or wheelchair. Guests can come and go at their leisure. We’ll pack a gluten free dairy free picnic and sit down somewhere and eat food. Some of you are thinking, “Hey, this sounds like not a bad idea….” but it gets BETTER.

I also have birthday party invitation issues. I can’t just buy a pack at Target and fill them out, BAM! done. Sometimes I get seriously scrapbooky crafty. Sometimes I design and print ones from Costco after achieving The Best Picture Ever of my child. If I go to a portrait studio (which I know is not The Thing these days but paying a professional photographer is not in my budget this year) I get all Stage Mom. I don’t know if it is leftover angst from modeling as a child or my perfection issues or what the fucking ever. I hate myself for getting crazy on picture day.

This year I took a picture with my phone of the littles being cute in our local AAA office. They were being cute! Coop loves these sunglasses he picked out so much. No one was crying! It was perfect! I was replacing my handicapped placard because someone thought it would be cool to roll* the windows down for our dog son Coop and WHOOPS out the window it went. Thanks to my awesome husband though, I spent ten minutes at AAA and had a new one.

The original picture had an unintentional photobomb, so I spent three minutes in Microsoft Paint and fixed it.Then I uploaded it to Target and spent $0.19 each on the prints.Then I tried to use up all of my hated scrapbooking sticky square pieces of shit.I wrote up an invite and used all my random cardstock you get when you buy inserts for a scrapbook.I stuck the picture onto the invite and DONE. One thing I highly recommend is buying these. They are clear return address labels. You know how the paper ones look like shit? These are fucking outstanding.

You think this is over, don’t you? I picked a place, made super cheap and easy invites, what more is there to do? Well if you’re Swistle and me (and I’m assuming other anxious fretful people), you worry about those fucking awful RSVP issues. What if I plan for twelve and two show up? What if forty show up? WHAT IF WE RUN OUT OF FOOD AND TOILET PAPER AND THE KIDS LAUGH AT ME NOOOOOOO. Hey guess what? My invites didn’t even have an RSVP.

If you want to show up, hey that’s great! We’d love to see you. If you can’t come, that’s okay! We’ll see you another time! If you’re at the park you can text me and we’ll meet up. You can listen to Coop wail through the whole tram ride because I won’t give him your expensive camera. Happy Birthday, Coop. You’re going to have a great time and your mother isn’t going to be stressed at all. I might actually enjoy myself!

*When are we going to stop using “roll the window down” when we’re not really rolling anymore? There is no cranking or rotating or … Can we change this please? That’s my goal for 2013. Get on it.

Much like engagement rings, eternity rings are available in a range of stones, styles, and cuts. Modern eternity ring trends consist of a metal band with several small diamonds or gemstones. These range from emeralds, garnets, or sapphires and  are mounted on a rose gold band. Traditional eternity rings bearing a snake swallowing its tail are still quite popular as contemporary couples and brides-to-be are sporting altered versions of this classic ring. Due to their distinction and versatility, eternity rings are becoming just as popular as the standard engagement ring and wedding band.  Couples today are using them as a way to further pronounce their love.

Spice up Your Wedding Set with an Eternity Ring

Ultra cool hipster brides are bypassing ordinary eternity rings in favor of something a little more special. Many couples choose to celebrate a milestone anniversary by upgrading their wedding bands and engagement rings, and those wishing to display their marital bond in a unique fashion are choosing to replace their bland wedding bands with eternity rings. This trend is nothing new as celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis have all donned eternity rings. Monroe and Hepburn even sported their eternity rings instead of the more traditional engagement rings. Modern eternity rings vary and are featured in a number of styles. These include the half eternity ring or full eternity ring and the claw set and integrate diamonds or gemstones. Besides these designs and cuts, eternity rings now come in a multitude of diverse metals and can be worn as a wedding band with an engagement ring or stacked in a set with other eternity rings.

The Return of a Classic: The Serpent Eternity Ring

The traditional serpent eternity ring has returned to the jewelry circuit, and couples are clamoring for this vintage style. The usual classic serpent eternity ring is made of a single snake either wrapped around itself or ingesting its tail. Precious gemstones like emeralds are embedded in the eyes of the snake. Jewelry designers have created their own updated versions of this vintage style. They are incorporating details such as stones and diamonds interwoven with two snakes instead of one. Adding other special touches, such as the use of rose gold or platinum instead of the traditional yellow gold, are also popular eternity ring trends. Unlike other types of eternity rings, the serpent eternity ring is more often used to celebrate a notable event for a couple such as a major anniversary or the birth of a child.

Adam and I just celebrated six years of wedded adventure. I’m willing to be no one saw this unusual pairing going the distance. Six years later we have two small children, an unruly teenager, three cats, four chickens, and love each other more than we did when we said “I do” in April 2007. I think we both deserve a little something special (mine an eternity ring, no snake needed) for making it this far.

~Guest Editorial~

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• Purchasing little girl shoes is fairly new to me.
• I cannot purchase shoes that look like they have been coated in Disney Princess, thrown up on by a Fairy, and then bedazzled.
• I cannot purchase shoes with any kind of heel for a four year old unless it is a physical issue prescribed by a doctor.
• Egg needs to be able to put them on and take them off by himself.
• They need to have a tennis shoe type sole.
• Egg needs to run and bike and play in them.
• They need to be available in half sizes and wide width.
• My sandals are typically brown or black. They are waaaaaaay on the not girly end of the girl shoe spectrum.
• Egg wants sandals of the Disney Princess type
• They must be comfortable because Egg has some sensory foot stuff.

On Thursday I went to the mall with my mother and the littles. I asked her to watch them in the play area twenty feet away while I scouted out the shoe store. This allows me to say, “You can have any of these specific shoes. Which ones would you like to try on?” Otherwise we start in Disney Princess Vomit Land and I just cannot do that at this time. Maybe he’ll wear me down eventually, who knows? For now, I let him pick from a selection of mother approved shoes.

Egg’s new shoes!

I need to get a good picture of them on his feet because I think they are more flattering than this picture shows. Egg loves these sandals. He will argue with you all day long they are not shoes, they are sandals. Eventually he’ll understand subsets but for now I’m happy he has shoes on his feet. The top flower portion has adjustable Velcro which I love because his feet run wide. These are pretty shoes but they’ll also work for running around and hopefully last until cold weather hits. He has a pair of tennis shoes as well, but 100 degree temperatures means your feet need to breathe. Egg loves them, Adam loves them, I like them a lot, and all the issues have been satisfied.

My favorite ones. *sniff*

*Pictures from Stride Rite

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But on the internet I was so badly hurt by one person that I try really hard to shut my fucking mouth. I’m a fixer and a collector of knowledge in random things. Adam will perseverate on something and get to level 95/100 of knowledge about dolphins in a short period of time. Then he’ll talk as a peer to retired people on dolphin internet boards who had spent their life researching dolphins. He goes way down the rabbit hole in whatever strikes him as interesting. It can be awesome or terrible and I never know what he’s going to get stuck on or for how long. He’s autistic. That’s how he is wired.

I’m not wired to the level Adam is, but I do collect information on certain things and sometimes people look at me weird. In seventh grade English they nicknamed me the Walking Talking Dictionary. Guess how popular I was? So the fibromyaglia means I might forget your name or the name of a thing like a fucking door. But if someone says, “Hey, anyone know about this thing?” I might know a large amount about that thing bordering on ridiculous. Today the thing was xanax. I know a lot about brain medications and I’ve taken a bunch. I’ve been treated for anxiety and depression with medication for over a decade. There has been some success and some failure but the end result is I have Bipolar II disorder and a doctor is treating me for it correctly. My life is much better.

I started seeing Chicken’s therapist and he went straight to Bipolar II and I was Very Skeptical. He had already diagnosed Chicken and it felt like the wrong diagnosis for me. I wasn’t manic at all. I was anxious and depressed. The doctor said in some patients the anxious and depressed are the two poles of mood. Instead of manic and depressed, I was anxious and depressed. I was still skeptical but he changed my medication a little and I already trusted him because he was so good with Chicken.

Once my anti-depressant amitriptyline was increased enough I wasn’t depressed. Which was great! But then I started these cleaning binges at night. I told myself before, “Oh I have this energy and I don’t know what my fibromyalgia will do tomorrow so I better roll with it.” Now I knew I would likely have the energy the following night because I was manic. It’s not awfully useful during the day, but after nine or ten at night I can fucking clean. Or organize. Or whatever. I can do it THE BEST EVER. Everything is awesome! Let’s make lists! I have very little pain! WOW!

In the morning I return to my fibromyalgia sloth life. I’m not depressed, I’m just fatigued and in pain. That’s fibromyalgia. When I put together the manic cleaning with the diagnosis I had an “Ah HA!” moment. Then the doctor asked me about irritability. “Oh, you mean the week before my period where I want to divorce my husband? Or when I’m SUPER MAD about something stupid?” Yes indeed, I am irritable. Adam said, “You need to ask your doctor for anti-bitch pills please.” I did. Literally. The doctor nodded and wrote me a prescription for clonazepam.

Clonazepam is in the benzo class of drugs and is very similar to xanax, valium, and ativan. Basically they’re downers. Not as in making your mood sad, but in taking raging bull bitch down to a kinder and gentler you. They have many MANY uses and are abused frequently. They’re all addictive. However, they are in the class of Sucks To Be You withdrawal as opposed to the paxil and effexor PLEASE SHOOT ME NOW withdrawal. Right now those are the only drugs I’m using to deal with my Bipolar II. The amitriptyline is a fixed daily dosage for depression and the clonazepam is a fixed daily dosage as written but I take as needed. Hypothetically I have a prescription for 1mg of clonazepam per day. I can take it all at once (after talking to or dealing with H1) or split it up into pieces. I can use a little one day and use the leftover a different day when I’m OMFGKILLALLTHEPEOPLE.

The clonazepam does a few things. It is anti-bitch pill. I don’t have crazy premenstrual dysphoric disorder anymore with the amitriptyline but I do get bitchy. If I’m in pain it takes the edge off of it. At night if I’m manic but it is midnight and I need to sleep I take a slightly larger dose and I can fall asleep. If I was twenty-five and had no kids I would probably ride the manic until I passed out. But I have grown up shit to do and I cannot stay up all night.

If I’m anxious it helps a lot. If I have to: talk on the phone, meet new people, go to a new place/doctor/etc I’m anxious. If I don’t look anxious I’m medicated. If I’m talking too much and over sharing with a lot of cussing thrown in for good first time meeting people I’m anxious. Reading The Bloggess’ book was REALLY helpful. Oh hey-me too! That’s why I act like an ass and just can’t seem to stop myself from saying OH FUCK I SAID IT I WANT TO CRAWL UNDER THAT LADY’S SKIRT BUT THAT SEEMS CREEPY, RIGHT?

I had a lot of obsessive anxiety after I had Egg and Coop and now realize it is a form of postpartum depression. They need to fucking re-name it something like: My brain is all fucked and I keep seeing my kids dying and I’m afraid of standing near the edge of something high up because what if my brain makes me jump or my baby falls? What about every car behind me can crush my car and my children disorder? Let’s envision that for a while, why don’t we?

Well. I didn’t mean to veer into PPD and PDD but it’s all the same really. Our brains doing fucked up shit that is not good for us, our families, or our children. I’ve tried so many medications and it has taken three psychiatrists and more than a decade to get it right. It’s a delicate balance. I want to try Lyrica when Coop weans completely and my amitriptyline dosage plus the Lyrica might cause serotonin syndrome. So do I pick sanity or pain relief?

I have more posts about Bipolar II coming. I’m hoping breaking the seal on this will allow me to talk about it more. I’d like to share some hard stuff and helpful things too. I’ve learned a lot. I don’t want YOU to give up. We all need you to be here. Keep trying.

This is okay. This is Dude drinking.

1) This is may be amended at any time.

2) You should NEVER expose your genitals without consent from the person’s eyeballs you’re damaging. We do not want penis pictures ever without asking for them. And if we’re asking for penis pictures we’re probably a dude. If you don’t know their sex, assume it’s a dude. (expanded by Tobiwah.)

3) You should never expose the internets to fecal matter or urine without prior warning or permission. I don’t care if it is your baby’s first precious snowflake poop or your cat. NO. (I have broken this one with my cat shitting on the toilet. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself and didn’t know The Rules)

4) Flush the toilet before taking a self shot.

5) Better yet, do not take a self shot in the bathroom if the toilet is visible.

6) If you’re taking a self shot, on cam, or making videos in a sexy way, children in the background are never okay.

7) If you’re taking a self shot in a G-rated way please note any sexual devices in the area. We have eyeballs. Don’t burn them with your enormous butt plug without following #2

8) Do not ever call a self shot a “selfie.” Better yet, do not ever take a self shot. (expanded by Miyagi Sensei)

9) Don’t steal someone’s writing or pictures or anything. Stealing is bad, assshole.

10) Don’t pretend you have diseases to make friends on the internet. Don’t be a fucking fake on the internet.

11) If you meet someone on the internet who has a. No IRL friends b. No internet friends c. No family YOU RUN LIKE FUCKING HELL.

12) If you meet a number 11 and people attempt to warn you about this person, obey rule 11.

13) Don’t be an asshole on purpose.

14) Don’t be a dick (suggested by Adam).

15) Threatening someone with a gun while you’re all chatting cam-to-cam won’t scare anyone. What are you gonna do? Shoot your screen? (suggested by Essie)

16) Don’t say your body is a certain amazing way and then post pics and/or videos that prove otherwise. (suggested by Essie)

17) Remove all visible sex related items when selling your home. No one wants to see your gallon of lube in a picture of your house on MLS. No one wants to see it in person. (suggested by Essie)

18) Clean up your room in which you’re making sexy pictures or videos. Clean the fucking mirror while you’re at it. (suggested by Essie)

19) Kitty cat pictures are a great way to cheer people up, unless they likes dogs at which point, you should decide if you want to be associated with ‘those people’ at all. (suggested by Tobiwan)

20) Never put anything on the Internet you don’t want resurfacing should you ever decide to apply for Public Office. Never do anything online you would not want the world to see. I don’t care if you love them and they’re special. NO. (suggested by Tobiwan, expanded by Sam)

21) Don’t open attachments, even from people you know because viruses will capture your computer and sell your body parts without your consent. (suggested by Tobiwan)

22) Fact: Even if the word ‘fact’ is in the explanation, it’s probably not. Unless it is Bex. (suggested by Tobiwan)

23) Do not ever complain about a blog you read to the blogger unless it is: “Please blog more I love your words.” If it sounds anything like, “Stop doing [insert]” the response you should expect is “Go fuck yourself.” (inspired by idiots annoying Temerity Jane.)

Feel free to add more rules in the comments below. I’m hoping to include your comments in the body of this post over time. I’m also hoping to include suggestions from people I don’t consider my close friends in real life. *ahem* More internet strangers please!

I’m so mad at my body. I give up wheat and dairy. I should get a fucking medal from my body. Real gold motherfuckers, not some “gold-toned” shit. But all I get is another story about how hard it is to have a toddler and IBS in public. I’m at Chick-fil-a (I KNOW SHUT UP) and I get a gentle tap on the shoulder from the Poo Fairy. I hurriedly round up the littles and get Coop’s shoes back on (off on off on off on please Coop you’re making me crazy) and the Poo Fairy punches me in the face. That means I am to head to a toilet right now or I’m going to shit my pants. Literally. Shit in my pants.

Getting Egg and Coop walking quickly toward the restroom is more difficult than herding cats. Literally, because I have had to herd my cats. I get into the stall and PRAISE BABY JEEBUS there is a toddler changing table inside. I put Coop on the changing table. He’s sitting down and I know he won’t jump off (yet). Egg is old enough so I know he won’t touch all the things but sometimes he gets frisky and threatens to open the bathroom door. I made it to the toilet! Which is a win in my book!

I’m in the middle of a type of poop that cannot be stopped. I just need to poop until I’m done and then I realize Coop is holding a french fry. He is also eying the strap people use to keep their babies from falling off the table. He really enjoys all sorts of snaps and straps and velcro things. Then it happens in slow motion as I am unable to move to stop it. He puts down the french fry. He fastens the strap around half of his body. And then he does the unthinkable: He picks up the french fry and eats it in front of me. I die.

Earlier today I took a picture of Coop on the potty outside. He asked to have his swim trunks off, he walked over to the potty and peed like a big boy. I was so excited and proud I took a picture of his cute little “I did it!!!” face and put it on the twitters. A short while later I’m looking at Twitter on my laptop and realize my son’s penis is all PENIS RIGHT HERE ON THE INTERNET and I die again. I deleted the tweet, edited the picture, and posted it without penis. I’m going to blame Coop for this dumbassery of mine, because you just cannot recover after seeing your kid eat baby changing table french fry germs.