The myth of the perfect baby

Well folks, I turned forty.  I was terribly unhappy for most of my birthday for mostly selfish reasons.  I never claimed to not know that I'm a selfish person, or to be some martyr that wants everyone else to just be happy for my birthday.  It was a pretty shitty day all around.  My family didn't forget me Sixteen Candles style again this year, and they have indeed done that to me.  For my 37th in fact.  What they did do was spent the day systematically making me feel like total shit in every facet of my being.  Not a damn thing I did or said was quite right and made someone mad.  I didn't get to go out to dinner like I had been promised for months before, I didn't get even one gift from anyone, anywhere with the exception of a spur of the moment drawing my daughter did because she felt bad for me.  I didn't even get to pick what we ate for dinner.  I know what you're probably thinking here.  Suck it the fuck up, you're a grown ass ...

I've been through a lot of strangeness in my almost forty years.  A LOT!  So much, that when I tell people my life story, they think I just have a very vivid imagination and that I'm off my meds again or something.  I basically live the real life version of a soap opera.  Every now and then, I'll have some normalcy and things will calm down and we'll have months go by without anything out of the ordinary happen.  October usually isn't one of those months.  Some of my worst things ever have happened in October.  But also, one of my best. I'm one of those "good news first" people, so I'll tell you the good first.  When I moved back home to California from Ohio, it was the first week of October in 2001.  That was a good October.  That trip was pretty cool really.  I didn't do the bulk of the driving, my husband did, and we did it in three days.  Only two nights spent on the road and the third night we were home.  Back home ...