Isabella B-Day Bash

You gotta love family events.

We set up camp at my dad's place early Friday afrernoon. About 3-4p.m., "the girls" showed up. "The girls" are my two nieces, Emberly (12 yrs) and Brianna (aka Nanna, 7-ish years), plus one of Emberly's friends who seemed to hang out with Nanna more the whole time they all were there. Poor Isabella. She only got about two hours of peace. When the girls came, all hell broke loose. Emberly carried Is off, Nanna followed, trying (and whining) to get a chance to hold her, both of them cooing over the baby while at the same time, bickering amongst themselves. Every so often Karissa and I would have to jump in and pull an upset Isabella out of t frenzy.
That night, we decided to go over to Amadon & Josie's, where we helped them clean house and laughed over and over again at a video of a toddler being knocked over by a pouncing kitty. --Oh, and Kevin and I both ended up stepping in rotten yard pie (fuck you Amadon, and quit laughing!).

Saturday, we were expecting to get hit again, and get hit we did. My dad made dinner, April and Kevin showed up among laughing and crying girls, Isabella was trying to take it all in. April was asked by my mom if she would take pictures of Isabella, Emberly and Nanna in pretty dresses, so she had her camera ready, hoping the sun would get caught behind some clouds at just the right time. Ang got there eventually, and informed us thatmy mom got off work at 5pm, and would be getting there shortly. She also informed us that mom wanted us to take a big family picture, and we were supposed to dress nice. She might have told us this before Karissa and I packed Friday morning 90 miles away.

On a sidebar, my mom is notorious for expecting us to be mind-readers.

My mom arrived some time after 5:30 (she got off work at Wal-Mart and apparently hit a time warp on the way to my dad's). There is an unbendable rule at the Hunter house. Dinner waits for no man (or woman). My notoriously un-punctual sister knows ts rule all too well and doesn't raise an issue with having to reheat a plate of the family dinner. My mom, however, never cared much for this rule, and was annoyed that we were already done (barbecues, macaroni salad, and nachos, delicious, in case you were wondering). Five minutes after she arrived, she was criticizing my brother-in-law for what he was wearing.

After a messy divorce from a year-long marriage with a Kentucky hillbilly (who recently was seen pulling his 400lb-ass up to a bank drive through on a lawn tractor--yep, you read that right), she now stays with my sister and the aforementioned brother-in-law, and barely affords rent on a house she hasn't fully moved into yet. My brother-in-law won't say much to her, because he doesn't want to get Ang involved.

We all kind of passed it off, mentioning that we were going to do a casual family pic if anything.

The girls reluctantly changed into their dresses, and proceeded to gripe about how short they were. We set up a place out in the yard, in the late afternoon sun, much to April's dismay. We tried taking pictures, and got a few really good ones, but Is wasn't having much of that. At this point, she pretty much just wanted to be left alone. We let her walk/crawl around for a while, and my mom went in to get my dad for the picture.
Karissa happened to be in the garage a few minutes later, and heard them arguing. a few more minutes later, my mom comes out. April asks her if she wants to do the family pics, and we can all of a sudden feel the mood drop. She says, quietly, "No. That's okay."
She stands around for a couple more minutes, watching Jason take Is out into the field and pick some flowers.
Then, without one word, she walks over to her car, gets in, pulls out of he driveway, and drives off. Not one fucking word.
She was arguing with my dad about taking a family picture. Dad said he had no problem with taking a couple separate ones, but he had no desire to be a the same picture as her. She started arguing, and dad ultimately told her to mind her own business.
Mind you, they had their share of problems, but they went through a very mature divorce procedure. They bicker off and on, but never to the point where she would get like that. This past year, she's been awfully strange, and my dad has been losing his patience with her. If you know my dad, to do this seriously is no small feat. Bottom line, he didn't feel comfortable about standing in the same picture as my mom. He's never once forced us into anything we didn't feel comfortable doing, so I wouldn't have pushed the issue But my mom doesn't take these cues too well.
Being the great nice family we are, once we got over the initial shock of what happened, we proceeded to make jokes about her throwing a hissy fit and leaving. My brother-in-law gave my dad a high-five.

Then we brought out the cake, and set it in front of Is. She licked Scooby's cake butt, we all had a good laugh, and she apparently did not like the laughter, and started sobbing (see April's pic on her blog).
She didn't stay up too much longer.
Later that night, we watched the premier of "Man With the Screaming Brain", which I loved, but Karissa and Dad hated.
The girls came over Sunday too, but after watching the Vikings disappoint us horribly, they left, and we soon got ready to ditch that popstand.
This week, we have to get pics taken with Karissa's mom & sis at JC Penney's, have our own little party, then have a party next weekend at Karissa's mom's house. 3 birthday parties in all! I'm so glad that Karissa doesn't have any little nieces, I don't think Isabella could experience that kind of stress for very much longer!

What did I get out that weekend? Aside from the drama, pizza, and rotten pie, I think I'm getting a sore throat. So we'll see where that takes me.