13th Birthday

Alyssa is officially 13. We had a very interesting day yesterday, her birthday. While talking to my son's friend's mother, my call waiting clicks and I see Alyssa's biological mother's maiden name on my call ID. So I tell the woman I am talking to, whose children are also adopted "Oh my god, the kids' mom is calling." She replies "Oh, I'll let you go." "Uh, no...we don't talk to her!" So I didn't answer. Then I was telling Rob about it and speculating that perhaps she has no access to a computer right now because she has left her husband (third one) and if she's with her parents maybe they don't have one. She always sends the kids emails on their birthdays and maybe she called because she can't email. To which my (sucker) husband replies "well, that makes me feel bad."

In the meantime, Alyssa is helping me get ready for her friends to come over and I told her Cara called and I didn't answer and asked her how she feels about Cara calling. I have no idea how I would feel if my mother abandonded me when I was 3 1/2 and I haven't spoken to her since and now I am 13. She said she didn't know. I asked her if she wanted to talk to her if she called back. She said she didn't think so. I told her she did not have to and it was totally up to her but I was sure she was calling to say happy birthday.

Obviously she called back, otherwise, I wouldn't be bothering with this. After some of Alyssa's friends were here, they were on their way out to the pool and she called back. She said "since it was a big birthday, she wanted to call. She wasn't sure if that was ok or not." I asked Alyssa again if she wanted to talk to her, told her it was up to her, she didn't have too; she took the phone. I could tell she was really uncomfortable. The dog was barking because the girls were standing at the door so Cara tried to talk to her about pets. Aly was freaked out I think.

So that was the first event of the day. We were not officially having a party because that stresses me out too much. I cannot handle the kids birthday parties. Too many people here, in my stuff, hate it. So it was just Alyssa's friends K & Z (from the Kelly Clarkson concert), my niece who is 11 and her friend from school. My sister-in-law came with her whole family to bring my niece here. Her husband and 3 sons hung out with my husband. Brandon went to his friend's house after karate. My mom and step-dad, step-brother and his wife came over for cake.

After cake we went to see "John Tucker Must Die". I was absolutely dreading it. It was surprsingly not terrible. There were some really funny things in it, I don't think the girls got it but Bet and I were cracking up. In some ways I guess it's good to go into a movie expecting nothing. Can't be disappointed that way. I was reminded why we never see movies in theatres though. All told it cost me $89.50 for seven tickets, a large popcorn, five drinks and two kinds of candy.

We get in the car and Aly informs me that her money fell out of her purse. She had put her birthday money in her purse. Needless to say this is after she has been told you don't carry all your money around for no reason at all. She "forgot" how much money she put in there. We went back in to look for it but, of course, it was not there. I got her to admit later that it was all of it, she lost $160. Thankfully, she had gotten some checks and those she had given to me so she didn't lose everything. That's a way to ruin your birthday.

We came home and my aunt was here. She called in the morning and wanted to come over. I tried very hard to prevent her from coming but she was determined so I think there was no way around it. She came much earlier than she was supposed to and by the time I got here Rob was totally stressed out because the boys (my jail bird cousin's kids) were running rampant and the younger one had broken something of my son's. My brother-in-law was totally trashed and shirtless. He had tried one of my aunt's meatballs, shoved it in whole, had sauce all over his face and then wiped it on his shirt. My brother-in-law is a piece of work.

After about 15 minutes here, with the lost money, my husband flipping out, the boys running around, I decided I needed to start drinking too!

Before they left the older of the two boys pitched a fit. All in all that visit was a nightmare. That's a whole other issue I have to deal with now. I don't want them coming over if they are going to run wild through my house. And I know my aunt is going to let them run wild.

As far as the rest of the party. The girls swam for a while, ate and hung out. Aly was disappointed because K was supposed to spend the night and like she always does, she changed her mind. Z never called her mom when I told her to. Her mom just showed up around 9:45-just after I said "Did you call your mom!?" After my s-i-l and her family left and we got cleaned up it was almost midnight.

So, it's a good thing I didn't have an actual party. Since I wanted to avoid the strees and the late night after cleaning up the mess. Tomorrow we get to do it all again for Brandon's birthday. Yay.