Typically, when one thinks of a baby shower, you think of smelling melted candy in diapers, lots of “oooh”ing and “aaaah”ing and, well, general boredom. I mean, is anyone ever really excited to get an invitation to someone’s baby shower. Shit, I am pregnant and the idea doesn’t even sound good to me.

That is, until my crazy ass friends decided to throw me a shower in Cletus’ honor. You see, last time around, my friends had a blast planning a shower for me. While it was more traditional than not, the planning process included brainstorming of ideas such as a vaginal entrance to the party (symbolizing birth, of course) and decorating the place with penis sheep (photo coming soon! Who knew that it isn’t advisable to draw and email half penis/half sheep from work?).

So when the opportunity arose to throw me a shower for Cletus, don’t you know that my ladies jumped on the chance.

To give you an idea of the party, weeks before, when asked for a guest list, I was told that the shower may not be “all audience appropriate” (aka: you probably don’t want to invite children or your mom). Factoring in that this baby features new and fun genitalia to work with, I won’t lie: I was very excited and just a tad apprehensive.

Upon arriving to the shower, I was surprised to find actual balloons and not just blown up condoms sprinkled around the house. But my disappointment wouldn’t last long…

Apparently my friends had a lot of fun shopping for penis decorations. When the penis cookie cutter was purchased, the clerk asked my friend, “Ooooh! Are you making cookies or jello shots??” My friend replied, “Tea sandwiches for a baby shower…?”

Obviously, it wouldn’t be an important celebration if Guillermo, the inflatable penis (who has traveled to Mexico, Vegas, and wine tasting in Walla Walla with us), wasn’t a guest of honor. In his high chair, of course. Safety first, people.

And the pièce de résistance…

A homemade cake made by the one and only Sissy! Can you believe that she made that hospital gown (and don’t forget the tiny little penises) herself out of gum paste?! I still have the Barbie and baby sitting on my kitchen counter because I can’t bear to disassemble it! I have to say, my vag IS kind of awesome. Although, I have never looked that coiffed during labor.

But I think the best part is imagining the tray of iddy biddy penises hanging out in the back of her fridge, just waiting for her 13-, 6- or 2-year old to discover them before the party. Man, I would’ve loved to see her 13-year old boy confront her with a tray of gum paste cock-a-doodle doos! Classic!!

After dining on penis-shaped delectables, we continued to the game phase which included all of my friends horribly insulting me with how gigantic they think my belly is (seriously, people. I’m not a Biggest Loser contestant for Christ’s sake!!).

Later we attempted to drink 2 oz. of punch and/or vodka-laced punch out of baby bottles.

Needless to say, hilarity (and a lot of “that’s what she said”) ensued.

I think we were all surprised at the end result, which probably doesn’t say much for the ladies we thought would kill at the “sucking”.

Despite the lock-jaw and penis-cake induced sugar coma, this shower was definitely full of the Golden. But, you know, in the non-pee on you kind of way.

Song title: Golden Shower by Space Barber

Lately, it seems like my childless friends are more and more curious about how the whole labor, delivery and parenting thing works. I can only imagine it is due to my impending D-day (delivery day) and that they are getting closer to signing their life away to children as well. The fact that I am getting so big that it looks like the baby might actually choose to just explode out of my abdomen Aliens-style probably doesn’t hurt either.

Honestly, sometimes I think I may prefer Aliens-style to, you know, the “natural” way.

And by “natural” I mean hopped up on whatever drugs (legal or not) I can get my hands on pre-, post- and during labor.

I absolutely love when my friends ask questions about pregnancy and parenting. Not that I’m all that educated on the topic, but since I’m the only one of us who has blown out their vag, I guess that makes me the resident expert (you know, besides our friend who is in medical school and actually is somewhat of an actual resident expert).

I do my best in these conversations to assuage the fears of my friends. Their biggest fears seem to gravitate towards said blowing out of vaginas, pooping on the table and just pain in general. Unfortunately, I’ve found that my filter-less honesty policy does more to freak the crap out of the girls than make them comfortable with the idea of childbirth.

Most of the time my friends leave these conversations looking completely terrified and double-checking their stock of condoms and birth control pills. Except for the one time I told them about our neighborhood’s Wine Play Date. That they were on-board with.

During one of our last conversations on the horrors and awesomeness of becoming a mother, as I excused myself to pee for the 51st time that evening, I had an epiphany of sorts…

…wait for it…

…no really, I’m drawing this out because it’s probably the lamest “epiphany” you will every read…

…okay, here it is…

While it’s really easy to describe and catalog the endless aches and pains of pregnancy, how in God’s green Earth are you supposed to explain to a non-parent the immediate and absolute bliss that comes with pushing out your baby and seeing him or her for first time?

Not to mention the delight of seeing your little one grow, learn and shape who they are and who they are going to be (in between temper tantrums, of course).

As hard as I try, the words just seem so dull and lackluster. I assure them, “No, no, really! The second you bust that baby out of you, all the pain goes away. You could care less about what has just happened, momnesia sets in, and all you care about in the world is this precious newborn laying on your chest.”

But in comparison to the nausea, backaches, urinary incontinence, pooping on the L&D table (which, I promise is not a big deal, people!! Just swear everyone in the room to secrecy and you‘ll never even know if you shit or not.), and possibly getting stitches to close up your butt-gina afterward, the “but your iddle widdle bebee is so precious” argument seems to get a little lost in the haze of fear.

My last pro-baby/vaginal birth argument always comes down to the fact that I am chicken shit AND had a pretty traumatic birth with Bee and I’m still going on this crazy ride again.

So I figure I’ll either convince my friends that pregnancy and childbirth is not really that bad or that I’m some weird freak who is in to S&M.

Maybe both. (wink wink)

Song title: No Words to Describe by Ever We Fall

One important thing that was discovered on my Girls Trip to Orcas Island, besides the scary ass doll sacrifice rock (::shiver::), was that my ability to hold an appropriate conversation is inversely, conversely, perpendicular? Well, it’s totally related to how quiet my location is.

See, on Orcas Island, apparently it is frowned upon to talk. At all. Ever.

We would be out at dinner or lunch with at least a dozen other patrons and every single one of them were absolutely mute while dining.

I’m talking monk-ass mute (trademark!). Complete restaurant silence.

And for some reason, that is obviously connected to the alignment of the planets and whatnot, in these circumstances our conversations would naturally steer towards genitalia, sexual fantasies and our favorite curse words. In fact, I’m pretty sure at one café we were the impromptu entertainment as the table of 50/60-somethings sitting near us did not speak a word the entire time, but seem captivated by our conversation.

What can I say? We *are* pretty delightful.

But what was totally hilarious is when we had breakfast at a normal, non-mute café one morning, with families and patrons who possessed the ability of speech, we probably had the most public-appropriate conversations of the entire trip. Which says something, because normally when I’m around children, my Tourette’s really flares up.

God help me when Bee starts preschool in the fall. Poor girl might get blacklisted if any of the teachers read this blog…

Song title: Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode

This last weekend, Sissy, Arla-Shay and I kicked our families to the curb and high-tailed it out of town to the San Juan Islands for a little girl time.

Ooh, that sounds a little gay.

And it was. Totally.

Let’s just say that it’s a good thing I had a pregnancy pillow as a boundary between me and Arla-Shay in bed. That girl is handsy, yo.

But, anywho, back to the trip.

All three of us were counting the minutes until departure time and then we roadrunnered the shit out of town and headed north to the Anacortes Ferry (FYI to Non-Northwesterners: It is a FERRY. Not a FERRY BOAT. Fuck you Grey’s and McDreamy for saying “ferry boat” approximately 25 times per episode.).

We made it safely on the intended ferry with no help from me (the ticket cashier: “Where are you headed?” Me: the San Juans…? Uh, I mean…Dur….”). Once on Orcas, we drove towards our resort…

…and we even saw some nature…

But there was one thing we saw as we crossed the island that made our drive go from this:

to this:

“What did you see?!” you ask.

Sasquatch?

Big Foot?

Yeti?

Oh, those are all the same guy? Fuck.

Well, it wasn’t him anyway. For those of you who know me, my deepest darkest fears include three things: Heights, Clowns, and Dolls.

Luckily all the Mountain Climbing Clowns on the island were busy that day, but we did end up driving by this monstrosity:

I’m not fucking with you. We were simply minding our own business, maybe screeching the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby or Footloose at the top of our lungs (maybe), when we drove by this crazy doll sacrifice boulder and screamed our bloody heads off.

Seriously, people of Orcas Island, What the FUCK!?! Later in the trip, we even came across this scary ass brain-eating zombie scarecrow thing just hanging out in some kid’s swing set outside of a craft studio. We exited this studio and I began to say, “Oh, I didn’t realize that the studio owner was out working on the kid’s swing set next to the car…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!! RUN! RUN! RUN!”

To say that we ran our asses off to the car and made dust out of that place is the understatement of the year.

So while we had a totally awesome time this weekend, we are all left wondering what the FUCK the hippie, doll-sacrificing, zombie-scarecrow-worshiping, mute people of Orcas Island are up to when the main-lander tourists aren’t around. I’m convinced we would have seen a Smoke Monster if we would’ve hung around long enough…

Song title: Big Island Ladies by Ryan

Wow.

That is all I have to say about today’s song title.

Wow. And awesome.

Okay, those are the TWO things I want to say about today’s song title.

Wow, awesome, and who the fuck are Alice Donut?

Okay, there are THREE things I wanted to say about today’s song title…

Anywho, for those of you who have been following along in The Days of My Placenta, I finally got in for my follow up ultrasound and the results are…

…drum roll please…

…my placenta is no longer falling out of my vagina!!!

[canned applause]

I gotta say that I will miss all the jokes about my exposed placenta and the idea of leaving a slug-like placenta trail on the ground wherever I go.

Shut up, I never said my sense of humor was classy (shocker, right?)…

(Un)fortunately, that means that I am also off “pelvic rest”.

“Yay.” (read so heavy with sarcasm that it makes you spontaneously lose control of your bowels)

However, there is this hilarious phenomenon that I discovered while on “pelvic rest” that I won’t miss. I have decided to call the “What Would Mr. Bee Say” Manifestation. It typically occurs while accompanied by a friend during some sort of minor activity including, but not limited to, lifting anything weighing more than a feather, managing more than one child at a time, having to exert myself at all (which may play a part in the fact that I gained EIGHT POUNDS last month. Well, maybe the Nom Nom Nom played a part too…)

My slight exertion will cause any friend within ear range to scream “Stop! I’ll do it!” and when I ask why, the response is a scripted “What would Mr. Bee say?! He would KILL me if I let you do that!!”

Apparently his craziness has proceeded him. Or maybe it’s just contagious.

Either way, hopefully people will start letting me be active sometime soon, because I’m transitioning from this:

to this:

fast.

Song title: Cow’s Placenta to Armageddon by Alice Donut

Well, ladies and gentleman, it’s about that time…

TIME TO GIVE AWAY MORE FREE SHIT ON THE BLOG!!

Some of you may be familiar with Arla-Shay, my lover from another mother…

Arla-Shay at the Glitter Party

I swear that she normally wears far less eyeshadow and glitter. And her eyes don’t normally glow red like the Devil either.

Her husband, on the other hand, totally has a mullet.

Well, Arla-Shay has started a new Etsy store that features her awesome knitting. Seriously, even though knitting is for, like, 80-year-olds, this girl can knit with the best of them! (I jest! I jest! I wish I had the skills to knit! I’m pretty sure I would just accidentally poke both my eyes out with those big needles if I ever picked them up…)

So in honor of her Etsy debut, Arla-Shay is giving away a pair of hand-knit pink & charcoal gloves, complete with the cute stringy thing that will make sure that little devils like Bee don’t lose them!

UPDATE: I just got word from Arla-Shay that she’ll knit a pair of mittens for a boy if you’d prefer!!

So here’s the dealio to enter in the contest…

Visit Arla-Shay’s Etsy Shop (click here) and post in the comment section of this post which item is your favorite! If you’d like, you can also comment about how adorable her glove models are…

For an additional entry, sign up to receive Mom to Bee in your inbox (click here). If you are already receiving Mom to Bee in your inbox, you already qualify for the extra entry!

For shits and giggles, we’ll keep the contest going until Thursday night, 8 p.m. PST. (’cause a girl needs to be free to watch her stories). I’ll post the winner first thing Friday morning!

Good luck!!

Song title: Free As A Bumble Bee by ABBA

As my bon voyage to 2009 and to welcome in 2010, I could think of nothing better than to relive what was called by many “the party of the year”.

And by “many” I mean one person.

But that still counts, right?

A few weeks ago, Mr. Bee and I hosted the Fire & Ice Winter Formal Extravaganza House Party (aka: The Glitter Party). To be honest, the party’s title would have been longer if Evite didn’t limit you to roughly 800 characters. Fuckers.

If you remember, the decision to have said party occurred back in November when Sissy, Arla-Shay and me spent 112 hours trying on disgusting 80’s party dresses at the Goodwill Glitter Sale. We couldn’t pass up buying these eye-candy dresses for ourselves and henceforth and heretofore decided that we’d have a party simply to give ourselves a reason to wear said Dresses of The Awesome.

All in all, we invited roughly 20 people to the shindig. If you weren’t invited, don’t worry, your invite totally got lost in the mail. I SWEARS.

The only requirement was to wear something spectacularly (and disgustingly) glittery and/or sequined. Oh, and bring a horrible white elephant gift. And food to donate to a local food bank.

What can I say? You gotta work to come to one of my parties.

But with that said, my crazy ass friends did NOT let us down…

Mr. Mullet 2009 & Mrs. Federal Way circa 1984

Mr. & Mrs. J

Yes, he IS wearing a dress, too. I mean "tunic"...

That is a CUSTOM-MADE suit, people. Like he *WANTED* to look like that.

Obviously Sissy and her hubs looked FAB!

Mr. Bee kind of looked like a sparkly hobo...

Big head + Little hat = hilarity!

Some couples were far too cute for the party requirements.

It doesn't get any better than this...

You might have noticed something a little different about that last photo. You know, the guy dressed head-to-toe as THE GINGERBREAD MAN! This guy was hi-larious. Like, I seriously think he should rent himself out to parties ’cause he was the mother-fuckin’ life of this one!

Not only did he dress as the Gingerbread Man (plus sparkly homemade bow tie and Chippendale-esque undies), but he kept it on ALL night. He even had to drink his alcohol through a straw placed in the mouth-hole of his costume. AND he spoke in a high-pitched Gingerbread Man voice.

The entire night.

Really, people. He NEVER broke character. Even when singing Feliz Navidad and Total Eclipse of the Heart on karaoke with his wife.

Despite the sequins and glitter that we’re still cleaning up from the party, the party was a huge success!

I don’t know what’s better: Mr. Bee’s expression in this photo or that Arla-Shay doesn’t even remember it happening!

Song title: Professional Party People by Basshunter

You know, if by “Jesus” you mean “Santabator” and “totally inappropriate holiday gift exchanges”.

A few weeks ago, my friends and I celebrated the season with our annual Santabator party.

“What/Who is Santabator?” you ask?

Check out here, here and here for your answers. Or more questions. You never can tell.

This year, I wanted to really remind all my friends the real reason for our Santabator celebration. So I compiled a gift that surprisingly was snatched up right away during the exchange (we have yet to determine why a friend of ours is so obsessed with these particular items…)

First, I passed along a treasured gift, the giant silver crucifix. Earlier this year, when I was having issues with my anxiety, et al, Arla-Shay came over for a playdate (with her kid, duh. Not that we need the kids for a playdate; they are just a good excuse!). She told me that she knew I was going through a rough time and had brought a gift for me. It was something that her mother had given to her.

Totally thinking that she was on the level, I closed my eyes upon her request as she began to take off a necklace that she had been wearing, but had been hidden underneath her shirt. Of course, I opened my eyes to see a nice silvery corpse hanging on a cross around my neck. Totally full of The Awesome!

I felt I needed to convey my “reason for the season” sentiments a little more strongly, so off to the local Christian Outlet (where all the discontinued and damaged Christians are sold) I went!

I’ll be honest with you, part of me thought that I would catch on fire the moment I walked in to the store. And I did keep my eye out for villagers with torches and pitchforks as I did my “shopping” (otherwise known as “what is the cheapest and most Jesus-ey thing in here”).

Once I found the 50% off Christmas tee shirt and the bible accessory gift (because we all have Bibles, duh), Bee and I headed to the cashier. I think I played the role of dutiful Jesus believer accurately until Bee, who is currently obsessed with dinosaurs, pulled out her little stegosaurus toy and began teaching the cashier all about it.

Aaaaaaaaawkward.

I began giggling nervously about how funny evolution is and that my silly little daughter just likes playing make believe with the Jesus horses and ran my agnostic ass out of there as fast as you can say “NON-BELIEVER! GRAB THE TORCHES!”

But, in the end, it was all worth it to submit my contribution to the Santabator gift exchange, which also had gifts such as…

The Ass-less Banana Hammock

A Christmas MerMan/Stripper Ornament

Spiderman Undies

The 2-in-1 Sparkling Mullet and Car Wash

The Ever-Popular Bump-Its

But, you know, maybe that look works for some people?

After some cut-throat gift stealing, yours truly made out with a…wait for it…SNUGGIE!!

YES!! I have now joined the pop culture ranks of total consumer whore*! But I guess with the asterisk since I didn’t actually buy the Snuggie.

But I did buy Snuggies for Sissy’s entire family this year.

Even the dogs.

Okay, I’ll go back and take that asterisk off.

Song title: Jesus Is the Reason for the Season by Kirk Franklin

T’was two weeks before Christmas
And the house was full of cheer
For the much loved Santabator
Was finally here.

As we all depart with our gifts
Which will be used more than we’ll say
Merry Santabator to all
Each and every day.

Song title: Must Be Santa by Raffi

Last Friday, a friend of mine had a birthday party where a few ladies got together to go see the new movie in the Twilight series, New Moon.

Okay, before you Twihards (which, gross, makes me think of erections) and anti-Twihards (yuck again) get all up in my grill, I must disclose that I’m only a partial TwiMom. Yes, I’ve read the books. YES, I think that the writing was horrific and that a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at a computer could’ve probably done a better job. Yes, I totally plan on seeing all of the movies. Roughly twelve times. Maybe thirteen.

Let’s just be honest. This is totally possibly the reason why the movies are so popular…

But not that I would ever dream of doing anything horribly offensive to this 17 year old. I mean, that would just be wrong and illegal, right? And totally delicious…

Quoting one of the ladies we were with, “I’d totally go all Mary Kay Letourneau on that shit!”

Did I mention that this was just a small group of girls going to the theater Friday night?

And if you look closely, you might notice our guest of honor for the night (besides the birthday girl, of course)…

To answer your questions:
1. Yes, that is a life-size cardboard cut-out of Edward Cullen. (A few of us ladies got it for the birthday girl along with bubble bath and wine so they could have a romantic evening together)
2. Yes, my arm fat really is that giggly (thanks for asking).
3. And yes, why I am humping Edward’s leg. The humping action was not captured as well as I had hoped in still photo.

It was a fabulous night of friends, drinks, hot dudes with no shirts on and pretty much every single piece of Twilight paraphernalia that is sold at Nordstrom.

I’d think about getting one of those cut-outs of Jacob if he didn’t have his stupid tee-shirt on… (*drool*)

Song title: New Moon by Paul Oakenfold