How to NEVER get invited back, in 7 easy step (kids edition).

My advance apologizes for those attempting to avoid getting out of parties if you don't have kids--this won't work without them (or a VERY willing spouse).

Let me just say that we did NOT go into this evening looking to shed friends, but that just may be what the end result was. How could things go so wrong, so fast? Let me break it down in 7 simple steps:

Step 1: Hubs. Hubs announces FRIDAY MORNING, "Oh yeah, we have a party a Friend's house tomorrow night, can you call the sitter?" Umm hey there late notice. Well, the sitters don't get out of the bus until around four, so I'm not going to be able to let you know until later.

Step 2: Can't get a sitter, but don't think it's an issue because you KNOW of 2 other couples who will be going to the party with their kids, so tell Hubs to suck it up.

Step 3: Show up at the party right.on.time. UGH. I hate being the first one at the party, especially when I've un-grown my entire wardrobe and LITERALLY have nothing to wear.

Step 4: Be the ONLY ones with kids there. Yeah, everyone else had a sitter. Even the family with four under 6. Yeah. They got a sitter. So who were the schmucks with kids? Yeah. That's us, party of 4.

Step 5: Let the kids play it cool. Show the party what awesome kids you have, building false pretense. Let the eat, drink out of big kid cups, go to the bathroom, go ahead, feel proud that your kids are hanging with the big kids. Celebrate by putting a movie in for the kids so you can enjoy a little adult conversation.

Step 6: See Hubs give the "wrap it up" signal, showing it's time to gather the shoes and head on home.

Step 7: EAT YOUR WORDS. Good Lord, this is when it hits the fan. I was chatting it up with three other moms and 2 kidless ladies when I uttered the craziest words ever: "Yeah, I LOVE having my two, but in my heart, I just feel like we should have had 4-6 kids."

Open up gateway to crazy, because we have a one-way ticket. No sooner had I uttered those words, Strip turns around (from innocently looking a a nativity scene with Hubs), and a friend says, "What's on her face? Is that chocolate?" Nope. That's blood. Not dripping from her nose, POURING from her nose. Bless her heart, a fountain of blood is now pouring out of one of her little nostrils, and she is FREAKING out. I scoot her into the bathroom, joking, "It's a good thing you wore your red dress," and try to get her cleaned up, and the bloodbath turned off. I'm chatting with her, making sure she didn't bump her nose, and asking her what happened, and she tells me, "I felt like my nose was running, but when I looked down, there was red on the dvd case." CRAPPER. I open the door and yell to Hubs (who has a bottle of Resolve and a roll of paper towels) to check the Snow White dvd for blood. He's on it.

FINALLY, the bloodshed ends, and I emerge from the bathroom victorious, only to be met with many sets of shifty eyes. Someone mentions, "I think you have another problem...." and I look at Nugget. Poop. Literally IN his big boy pants. Bless the kids heart, we must have been so involved with Strips clot-less nose, that no one noticed him crouch behind a chair and poop (and he must have been too scared from the blood trail into the bathroom to even ask). So I clean him up and give Hubs the less-subtle version of the lets go sign, apologize profusely to everyone involved, and we load in the car.

THEN I bust out into a full on asthma attack on the way home. And where is my emergency inhaler? In the coat closet. Awesome. We make it home, I get a couple of puffs, hose of the kids and put them to bed. I'm planning on writing a very nice note to the Friend Fam and making Hubs take a tin of his yummy homemade fudge to work on Monday.

So the above scenario mixed with the 48 Hours special about fake adoptions, makes me think we were destined to be a family of 4 plus dog, and REALLY makes me hope our friends can look past all the blood and poop and still want to hang out with us. Ugh, who am I kidding!