It seems to be tradition in this family that when our children have a birthday, and we get them a cake, something is always misspelled.  In September my oldest fell victim to this when the local Dairy Queen spelled his name “Jossepph” (don’t ask me how they can misspell the name Joseph, but they did) and in March, the local grocery store misspelled the word “birthday” on my husband’s cake (burthday)… so it only seemed logical that Abbi’s birthday would be no exception to this rule.  My mother (in her usual fashion) placed the order for Abbi’s ice cream cake with the local Dairy Queen on Thursday, letting my niece pick out a beautiful pink Disney Princess cake and giving them the exact words for the cake “Happy Birthday Abbi” (now who could screw this up, right?).  Much to our surprise and amazement when they showed up with the cake on Saturday for Abbi’s party, my niece declared “Aunt Kelli! They did it again! Look!” I began examining the cake to find the new misspelled word… hmmmmmmmmmmmm, Abbi was spelled right, birthday was spelled right… you can’t tell me they misspelled….. oh my god, they did! And there it was, in all it’s glory eternally etched in perfect computer aided laser print out the word “happy” spelled HAPPP. Hmmmmmmm, happp? I’ve never laughed so hard in my entire life… and it was a good thing I got to laugh about something, b/c as is her normal fashion to screw up my life, my mother in law showed up an hour and a half late, and the rest of us were stuck waiting on her.  Granted she had to work, but when you call someone and say “I’ll be there at 4pm” you DAMN well better be there at 4pm.  My husband called her when she was 10 minutes late and she said “we’re almost there”, so how the heck between almost there and there do you end up still being another hour and twenty minutes late?  When they all finally rolled in, there were no apologies to everyone else who was waiting on them, just a “here’s the gifts, where’s the food?”.  My sister had to work that day too, and she managed to get here before them!  There are things that irritate me, but telling someone you’re going to be somewhere for a party at a specific time and then not showing up for another hour and thirty minutes is ridiculous!  I was very happy when my best friend Melissa showed up (had she not shown up, I may have very well strangled my mother in law and sister in law bare handed with a smile on my face)… she had gone to her niece’s birthday party and I didn’t think she was going to make it to Abbi’s (she politely said she didn’t think she’d make it, but she’d try)… I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see someone in my entire life!  It only took us about 10 minutes to break out the rum and start the drinking.  We drank until the bottle was gone (it was a new bottle) and the sun had set and my mother in law had left (thank god for small miracles!).  I don’t drink that often, but man, when my mother in law is around, that women drives me batty!  And the combination of her AND my mother in the same area for any amount of time is like being in a cage with wild lions, and I’m the meat!  They each find someway to make me feel as if I’m not being a good enough mom… like somehow everything I do isn’t even close to being as great as they are/were.  They’re both irritating like flies… and I can’t smack them (well, I could, but it wouldn’t be pretty).  Thank god for good rum, good friends and hot coffee on Monday mornings to remind me why I exist on this planet anyways.