It snowed overnight Friday and Caitlin woke us yesterday at an ungodly hour with sheer joy: “Mommy, Daddy it snowed out! It’s so beautiful!” It was a quasi-Winter Wonderland. Not enough snow to cover the grass, but just enough to encourage the dogs to pee on the tree in the center of our patio and discourage them from walking another five feet into the hinterlands of the backyard. Not enough snow to build a snowman, but just enough for Caitlin to finallly wear her snow coveralls she got two years ago for Christmas. I headed to the grocery early Friday with all the other village idiots and I stocked up on the necessities: Pull Ups, milk, beer, Girl Scout cookies, and washable paints for Caitlin. The hubby took Caitlin to the video store and I made Southwestern bean soup for dinner. We were hunkered down for the forecasted winter storm. By 1 p.m. yesterday Caitlin had painted several masterpieces, she was already bored with the two videos she had picked out at the movie store, the baby was napping, the hubby was working, and I started getting that maniacal urge to spring clean, only it was 20 degrees outside. Dog hair, dried bananas, and fingerprints taunted me. Our dirty house was suddenly larger than life and I did what every bored homebound with small children woman does when she is suddenly disgusted by the sad domestic state of her surroundings. (No…it was too early for tequila.) I broke out the old toothbrush. I scrubbed the highchair and its sticky plastic crevices. Caitlin got into the cleaning groove and wiped down every surface in the kitchen with those handy all purpose wipes. I cleaned out the refrigerator and threw out jars with two tablespoons of whatever clinging to the bottom. We vacuumed (mommy witih the real vacuum and Caitlin with her red plastic vacuum from grandma) in unison and for one hour the house actually seemed clean.

I worked from home most of this week with the baby in the grips of the cold from hell. Here’s a little ditty as I channel the blues singer deep inside my white girl, thinks she’s a good dancer after a glass of cheap wine, likes to belt out cheesie top 40 songs in the car soul.

Since I had my second baby, I try to get things done
But I’d rather sit and play with her ’cause she is so much fun
Oh I’ve got the mama’s on a deadline, gotta take a call from an uppity client and put on my professional voice workin’ mom blues

The dirty dishes and the laundry, the neurotic dog that won’t shut the hell up
The runny nose and dirty diapers, well they just won’t let up
Oh I’ve got the mama’s trying to be productive, gotta stop reading blogs and check work e-mail workin’ mom blues

My husband works long hours, he likes a nice hot meal
But I never made it to the grocery so he’ll just have to deal
Oh I’ve got the mama used to be organized but it’s tough to juggle the errands, kids and gourmet meals so she’s gonna dial Domino’s workin’ mom blues

The hubby needs some lovin’, and mama could use some too
But I haven’t shaved my legs this week and the house looks like a zoo
We’ve got the mama and daddy need to plan a Carribean getaway, poolside, greased up with SPF 45, margarita in each hand workin’ mom and dad blues

Yeah.

I had a blonde mommy moment Valentine’s Day. I took Amelia to the pediatrician as she looked miserable Monday when I picked her up from daycare and ran a low-grade fever that night. She’s been a virtual snot factory off and on for a month and has been on both Amoxicillin and Augmentin for ear infections. I had kept Amelia in all weekend and she seemed fine by Monday only to get sucked in by the undertow of daycare germs. They have very strict sick child rules pertaining to fever, etc., at her school and although they are constantly sanitizing everything, there’s only so much you can do in the winter with germs bungee jumping from child to child. It’s a veritable germ orgy. When we arrived at the pediatrician’s office Tuesday she was flushed and burning up with a 103 degree fever. The nurse asked what I’d been giving Amelia and I told her Infant Tylenol. She asked me how much and I found out I’d been giving her too small a dose for her nearly 21 pound booty. Great. I left with an informative handout listing doseages by weight and a prescription for a third antibiotic. See, you have two babies and you put on your “Experienced Mommy” crown, only to realize you’ve been screwing up. Also, to the mom who told me to give Amelia Motrin, rather than Tylenol, you rock. I know we could have it much, much worse, but I’m so ready for cold and flu season to be officially closed. (Read on …)

Is it just me or is promoting “experimenting” with crystals in Yoplait Trix kids yogurt a bad thing? I’m just sayin’.

My maternal grandmother would have celebrated her 90th birthday February 20. I think about how much joy my girls would have brought her and how much love she would have showered on them. She died in February 2000, though, the year before I got pregnant with Caitlin. She loved her dogs, drinking Diet Pepsi, reading romance novels, and spending the days in her sewing room. She always called me “honey” and she taught me the joy of hunting for four-leaf clovers and pressing them in my Bible. She was ever so proud of her beautiful backyard rose garden and she never failed to have a rose in a vase in the kitchen and candy orange slices in a candy dish on her coffee table. She’d hold me tight and rock me when I was little and sing “Go Tell Aunt Rhodie.” When I went away to college she was dilligent about sending me cards, for no particular reason, just because, and she’d always stick a $10 bill inside (for gas money or groceries, she’d write) and she’d sign the cards “I Love You, Grandma” with pencil in her distinct cursive writing. She made handmade outfits for my Barbie dolls and sewed my first tooth fairy pillow from yellow and white gingham material. When my beloved stuffed Snoopy had seen better days, she cleverly fashioned a pink “collar” for him from an old belt. She quilted as long as I can remember and lovingly made baby quilts for her grandchildren, even those of us, like me and my brother, who were single at the time. She wanted to pack the baby quilts away for great grandbabies that hadn’t even been born yet because arthritis was slowly crippling her hands. That’s just the kind of grandma she was. I’ll never forget when she told the hubby, shortly after he proposed, that she’d chase him down with a stick if he ever mistreated me. And, despite being less than five feet tall, I know she wasn’t joking.The Mommybloggers are having a Rumble O Love in honor of Valentine’s Day! Check out their site for more stories on love.

I have a dream. It’s Saturday evening….wait, better yet, it’s a week night. Hey, if I’m going to dream, I might as well dream big . Our family of four is gathered for dinner. The table is set with aplomb…not a utensil or container made of plastic to be found. Amelia is eating peas and Gerber meat sticks without massaging them into her hair. Caitlin is eating a nutritiously balanced meal without protest. The hubby is peacefully reading the news. I’m wearing a cute sundress (shallow me…always about the clothes). Oh and my lipstick matches my cute sundress. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Mealtime utopia. The chi and the wine are flowing. Caitlin is eating a nutritiously balanced meal without protest. Wait, am I repeating myself?

For some reason mealtime at our house is not the peaceful God is great, God is good alternative universe I envision. Caitlin, who ate everything she could get her chubby little fingers on as a baby and could never squeeze her cottage cheese booty and thunder thighs into a Baby Bjorn, is now incredibly picky. It drives me nuts that a sweet child of mine who once ate most all her greens and her yellows, as my mama says, feigns gagging if I mention the world vegetable. I know she is ingesting something of nutritional value, however, as she is over the 30 pound mark. Luckily she likes most fruits and dairy and she always eats a good-size breakfast, although I am guilty of buying too many convenience prepackaged foods like frozen pancakes. Well there is that lone box of buckwheat organic pancake mix in the pantry I bought in a granola moment, but it’s gathering dust. Caitlin’s repertoire of foods she will eat without much wailing and gnashing of teeth is fairly slim. I’ve tried the “do not prepare a separate meal” method I’m sure her pediatrician would approve, but Saturday night the hubby made these awesome steak fajitas and Caitlin, well, Caitlin ate corn chips and cheese. I remember being stubborn at mealtimes over the eat your veggies issue and sitting at the table in the dark kitchen with the dishwasher running…much ado over a broccoli floret. Amelia, in all her 11 month-old worldliness, will eat cold peas without blinking. Thank God for those gummy bear vitamins or Caitlin would probably have scurvy or rickets.

Amelia, you are 11 months old today. Just one more month and you will celebrate your one-year birthday! It is a cold February afternoon and we have enjoyed snow flurries off and on all day. The grass was sprinkled with white powdery snow this morning. Right now you are napping. You’ve been playing with your big sister all day. She adores you so. She wants to be with you the second you wake up in the morning. In fact, she gets very upset if mommy gets you out of your crib without her help. I hope the two of you are always as close as you are now.