Dear Neighbor:

Thank you for suppressing your primal urge to fire up the circular saw for a second night in a row. When you got the yen to play Bob the Builder at 10:42 p.m. Tuesday it was rather annoying. Thankfully you decided after about five minutes that you would stop building/fixing/chopping up body parts or whatever the hell it was you were doing because I have been contemplating the following late night activities as a retort:

Mowing our front lawn
Using our leaf blower on your driveway
Pressure washing the mildew that is growing on the front of your house

Thank you kindly for refraining from further nocturnal home improvement projects.

Signed in neighborly love,

A woman with small children who needs her sleep dammit and is doing well to deal with the other neighbor’s dogs who bark all night

A few things I’m thankful for this week:

the fact I haven’t gone insane this week due to post-vacation trauma syndrome

my neighbor not having a home improvement moment at 10:42 last night (like he did Tuesday) and firing up a circular saw…altogether now WTF?!?

the ability to work from home when one of the girls is sick

tiny toddler jeans with elastic waistbands that fit comfortably over a fat toddler belly

an incredible deal we got on a used wooden swing set

cooler temps at night and sleeping with the windows open

having the willpower to resist eating the leftover dougnuts in the break room at work Monday

Bailey, our dog, celebrating her 9th birthday with us

I finally met two real live bloggers from the Nashville is Talking blogroll!

I was very excited to meet the wonderful Malia and her adorable little boy yesterday for lunch at Mothership BBQ in Berry Hill, which, appropriately enough, is owned by another Nashville Blogger, Jim at Nashville Knucklehead. (Jim, I really expected from your blog that you’d be dressed in your Elvis jumpsuit.) We talked about blogging, work, motherhood, and finding the perfect Elmo Halloween costume for her little boy on Ebay. But the real nitty gritty of our pork infused get together was to organize a fun bunco evening on Friday, September 29 at the Mothership, which has the most incredible pulled pork barbecue (and I’ve eaten enough BBQ sandwiches to line a church pew in my life having been born and raised in Middle Tennessee). Mothership Owner Jim, aka Dr. Funkenswine, lovingly hand-rubs every rack and butt that lands on his smoker, so how can you resist such attentive detail to pork booty!

If you are interested in playing bunco and eating barbecue on the 29th, send me an e-mail at blondemomblog {at} yahoo(.)com. Malia will also be e-mailing information.

p.s. here’s a great review of the Mothership from The Tennessean which makes me realize I totally missed out on the naked Ken dolls in the ladies restroom

Well, I could use a laugh today. How ’bout you?

So here you go. Barbie has a new canine companion that eats dog biscuits and poops. The pellets remind me of Tic Tacs, though, so you might want to keep them away from those small children in your house who can’t yet distinguish between a breath mint and toy dog feces. We saw this commercial last night and thanks to the Tivo remote, which is teaching my daughters that you can pause and rewind live TV and OH LORD I am not sure that is a good thing, the hubby rewound and replayed in slow motion Barbie’s pooch pooping several times. Caitlin was mesmerized.

I always wanted one of those baby dolls that shed tears and wet her diapers when I was a little girl. Little did I know that some day my daughters would be able to play poop scoopin’ Barbie.

Last night I prayed for my best friend’s sister-in-law who is dying of cancer. As I asked God to comfort her and her family something I hadn’t thought about in a very long time came to mind. About six years I had plans for a fun girls’ night out with my friend and her sister-in-law to see Dwight Yoakam in concert here in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium. My friend had to cancel at the last minute. She was in the first few months of pregnancy and was experiencing horrible morning sickness so a night out at a concert was the last thing on her mind. I went to the concert with her sister-in-law and we danced. We hooped and hollared. We made fools out of ourselves as Dwight put on an incredible performance…in incredibly tight jeans. It made me smile. I thanked God for putting that positive image in my mind right before I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Reading all the wonderful 9/11 tributes yesterday made me realize what an honor it is to remember those who have passed on by memorializing their lives and what made then unique….what made them smile…what made them dance.

We brought our traveling road show of two tired parents and two cranky little girls to a halt just outside of Birmingham Thursday to eat dinner and stretch our legs. Caitlin whined incessantly about playing, but refused to eat. She finally reluctantly nibbled a few chicken nuggets because we were not going to let her step foot into the play zone, by God, without her eating a thing for dinner. She plucked off her sandals and ventured into the plastic, winding monstrosity primary colored play area. Two “mean girls” were holed up in a big plastic car and wouldn’t let Caitlin in. They looked to be about 6 years old or so. Then they told her she had to say “poop” before she could come in to their special hideout. I’m not sure what else they said to her, but Caitlin burst into tears and came running to me and the hubby while we were taking turns pulling Amelia off the playset as she repeatedly ran toward it with such willfulness I’m amazed she didn’t hurt herself. In the meantime, the little girls’ moms were chatting away in the nearby dining area oblivious to the fact that their girls had made our girl cry. They also kept giving me “the look” of snooty mom disdain. Of course when I went into the restroom with Amelia after we finished eating and looked in the mirror I realized that I was one missed shower away from looking like a homeless person but COME ON people we’d been traveling all day. Any way, enough about me…this is a little story of how Caitlin’s knight in shining armor turned what could have been an unpleasant evening into a bright spot.

A little 9-year-old boy, very well spoken and quite the charmer, then befriended Caitlin as she wiped her tears. He asked her if she wanted to play with him seeing as these two mean girls in their pale pink leotards had shunned my sweet girl. Caitlin and her Prince Charming romped and played and her tears dried. As we were leaving the little boy even offered his handful of change from his ice cream to Caitlin. She declined but then invited him to go to her Papa’s beach some time.

He might not have been an actual knight in shining armor, but for a few minutes this little boy befriended Caitlin and made her forget about the mean girls that made her cry. Chivalry is not dead. It’s just sometimes found in the least likely of places.

Have a fridge/freezer stocked with kid friendly food, some of it actually nutritious!

Add an extremely picky 4-year-old who would live on nothing but string cheese and apple juice and bread if you didn’t coax her into expanding her culinary tastes beyond foods that are prepackaged or come in boxes or bags featuring cartoon characters.

End up eating all the untouched foods, such as pizza rolls, for your own lunch. (Finger foods are great for blogging while lunching.)

Throw in an occasional bag of fruit snacks or a juice box for good measure.

Wonder why you are not losing any weight even though they are “light” pizza rolls, dammit.

Consider Googling the calories burned by picking up a (nearly) 25-pound 17 month old over and over again.

Opt to eat another pizza roll instead.

So, moms with kids in daycare/preschool. Do you ever take your kids in on your day off? Caitlin is home with me today and is content watching movies from the couch while I attempt to scale Mount Laundry. I took Amelia to daycare at 10. Heck, we paid for the week (we get one discounted tuition “vacation” week but we use it during Christmas) so I want to get some bang for our childcare buck. Any way, one 4-year-old who is easily distracted by Disney is way easier than two children, especially the youngest who is in the MUST GET INTO EVERYTHING stage. And I have to admit after a week of full throttle family togetherness, wiping butts, and cleaning sand from baby fat rolls, I could use a little reduced mama time before the weekend.