We got the e-invitations out, FINALLY, which linked to a birthday website (Link is down now, sadly– a few people emailed me that they had gotten access by testing out codes, so big fail on my part. Point to Jason.) Jason coded for 23 hours. We butted heads so hard over this our skulls practically cracked. The website required a code to access, which was on the e-vites. We figured that’s the safest thing; what with it being the Internet and our home address being pretty in-your-face. All the guests got a specific number, which translated to a specific image, which I had to then add individually to an HTML document which then needed to be converted to email form. Basically, it was 21 individual family codes I had to do that for. (I argued that, too. Why couldn’t they all have the same code? BECAUSE, Jason said, THEN they wouldn’t get a personalized message from the site.) After I get the first one finished, Jason looks over and is like, “Wait, you’re not using those codes?”

BECCA: Yes. I am. I sent you the codes.

JASON: You’ll need to redo them.

BECCA: … Why. Would I… do that?

JASON: Because these are too easy to guess! 001? Anyone could punch that in.

BECCA: Anyone who cared enough to track down the system we were using and start at 000, yes, maybe.

JASON: Redo all the numbers, and randomize them. Please.

BECCA: I really don’t want to.

JASON: It’s a safety precaution.

BECCA: No, like– I REALLY don’t want to redo all my work for the last two hours.

JASON: BECCA. SAFETY. SAFETY OF THE CHILDREN.

BECCA: OH MY GAWD. FINE.

I pull up my code sheet to randomize everyone’s numbers, and Jason adds, “That’s not– the invitation, right?” Dude. If looks could kill. You should have seen my face. Jason was supposed to do the invitation, because he’s by far the better artist, and because I KNEW he would go back and “fix” whatever I did anyway. He promised he wouldn’t. Just help me out, he begged. I can’t do this all myself. So I worked hard on what I thought was a pretty awesome invite, and Jason is shaking his head, frowning: “This cloud should be ABOVE the border, to give it a more three dimensional look. And this text– nice font choice by the way–”

BECCA: Thank you.

JASON: — you can barely read it at the bottom.

BECCA: Well, guess what. That’s what I did. That’s what you get.

JASON: … Can I just–

BECCA: No.

JASON: ONE SECOND.

BECCA: JASON.

JASON: Just let me borrow your computer for one second.

BECCA: For WHAT?

JASON: JUSTTTT. Let me see it. REAL QUICK.

BECCA: Ugh. Fine.

JASON: Thank you. Okay… do you still have the invitation open in Photoshop?

I am simultaneously stoked for and terrified by the upcoming event. The bad news is we have potentially twenty children of varying ages, and we need to Zelda-Entertain them for two to three hours. The fantastic news is that my mom, my sister, and Becky Jo are all coming early (as of right now), so I’ll have help galore for the two days leading up to the party. (There’s also a possibility that Ceec might make a Special Guest Appearance; which would be awesome but NO PRESSURE CEEC. For real. I’d hate for her to have to do battle with a plane or her father to make it happen.)

On the kid front:

Addie is talking constantly. It’s like she went from a mumbling baby to a human that reaches my knees overnight. When Jason got home today: “HI DADDEE! HI DADDEE! I had ice cweam! Itz gud! Mmm! I wike ice cweam! Den bruddy and me sawed TV! We put TV on! I feewin’ happee!” She calls Elias ‘bruddy’, which is her pet form of Brother. BRUDDY! she howls up the stairs in the morning. COME EAT FOOD! BRUDDY! WUR YOU GO! I NOT SEE YOU BRUDDY!

Elias is also getting more adult by the minute, but his big strides have been in the form of school. Erin took me to the Dollar Store the other day to get supplies for her children’s birthday parties, and they had workbooks. (“How much are these?” I asked without thinking, and Erin was like: “A DOLLAR.”) I picked up four: three for Eli, one for Addie. Eli’s were math, reading, and time. Addie’s was a preschool CareBear book which just dealt with matching shapes and counting to five. Elias immediately got to work when he got home. He knocked out the entire math book in about thirty minutes. It really blew me away. The first two or three pages I did with him, and then I left him alone to try it himself. He got about 90% of the questions right. Once in a while, he would mix up the addition and subtraction, and you could tell by the answers (4 – 2 = 6). Still: he’s technically a four-year-old. For another week and a half. He finished the reading and half the time book yesterday, and we had to stop by the store to get a handful more. “I fink dos teachers are gonna LOVE me,” he announced happily this afternoon.

Addie horded her CareBears book in the corner, drawing big looping circles around every bear and marking their eyes out. I got a shrill scream in reply when I asked if she wanted help to do it, you know, the right way.