Dear Caitlin:

It makes me so happy to know that you love playing pirate, digging in the dirt in the backyard, and befriending a lowly worm as much as you love playing dress up with your jewelry and tutu and Mimi’s funny wigs. It also makes me happy to know I convinced you to release the lowly worm back to his dirt bachelor pad and that he really didn’t need to live in our house.

Love, Mommy

p.s. I know you’ve had the best time visiting with Grandma, Mimi and Pee Paw. We’ve missed you, but we’ll see you this afternoon and we’ll get ready for your soccer game!

Holly’s Corner has an interesting post called Girl Games…the petty emotional games little girls play and the fact that this seems to start at a younger and younger age. Heck both of my girls were already wrapping themselves around my little finger FROM THE WOMB (at least I like to blame Caitlin for my unquenchable desire for McDonald’s breakfast the entire time I was pregnant with her). Unfortunately Caitlin has picked up on the “I’m not going to be your friend any more” phrase from daycare and wields it like an emotional sword if she doesn’t get her way. I jokingly call her our manipulatress when she does this, but it’s not something I want to take lightly. I don’t know why girls tend to play mind games, from the “I’ll be your friend if you do this” or the “I won’t be your friend if you do that” pettiness to the batting of eyelashes and the super pout, but I like what Holly has to say about teaching her daughter to not get caught up in all of it. I mean the manipulatress skills can be put to good use when Caitlin’s older, much older, like 50 years from now when she’s trying to convince the assisted living facility director to upgrade mama and daddy to the penthouse. Ahem. (Read on …)

We took the girls to a wonderful farm Sunday just a short drive from our neighborhood that bustles each fall with all the area suburbanites hauling their families out in droves in the family SUV seeking farm fresh air, a hayride, maybe a close encounter with a goat, an honest to goodness corn field maze (our first!), and of course, the great pumpkin.

We forked over our cash at the entrance to the activities area money pit and I could not believe I had remembered to bring our digital camera but forgot the memory stick as we headed toward a cage with two adorable brown bunnies. There admiring the bunnies was a couple with their son. The mom was snapping away with her digital camera and bending down to capture the photographic memories as her child oooohed and aaaaahed over the bunnies. The hubby and I immediately both noticed her, uh, butt. I’m really surprised that Caitlin, in all of her 4-year-old matter of factness did not declare “Mommy, her butt is showing! Look at her silly butt!,” but thankfully she was too distracted by the bunnies. The mom also had one of those ornate tatoos on the small of her back that screams “I DARE YOU TO NOT LOOK AT MY BUTT.” She was either oblivious to the fact that a very significant portion of her booty was exposed to the world while she photographed her son, or she knew and just didn’t care because there were photos to be made, plumber’s crack be damned.

I realized last night that this blog is one year old today! I will spare you a long-winded account of how it all began, although if you read this blog regularly and you know me in real life you know I am long winded. The short version is I wanted to revamp our long neglected family website last year. I didn’t realize that a blog format was what I was looking for until my husband introduced me to blogging. I was skeptical at first but then he hooked me up with a domain name and a Flickr account and I was hooked. I needed a creative outlet, especially since I was working from home last fall with a 7-month-old Amelia. I’ve made friends through blogging and I’ve discovered an entire blogosphere of funny, talented, and incredible women.

Here are my top 11 (I had to add one more) favorite posts from the past year…

Workin’ From Home Mom Blues
Delusions of a Working Mom
More Boobs Than Bourbon Street
WWJD
Super Caitlin
Being 3 Means
Hell on Wheels
Mama Don’t Get No Flex Time
The Young and the Mostly Restless
Baby’s First Car Ride
and Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Brassiere

p.s. I think I will milk this “birthday” for a piece of cake or maybe ice cream after soccer practice tonight.

The nice PR folks representing Clorox contacted me several weeks ago about reviewing their latest product, Clorox UltimateCare Premium Bleach. Considering laundry dunes taunt me and stains mock me I said, “Yes, please!” You know you revel in the mundane when you get excited to see a box of bleach on your doorstep.
(Read on …)

While the hubby was changing Amelia’s diaper yesterday, which was a rather unpleasant porridge of poop I might add, I overheard him singing to her:

“Hush little baby don’t say a word, Daddy’s gonna clean up your little turd.”

I love him so. Tee hee.

And is everyone else out there having a stereotypical Monday? I’ve been putting out a little client fire here at work, and, unfortunately, I helped fan the flames.

Wheeeeeee

Originally uploaded by blondemom.

My baby turned 19 months old yesterday. Amelia is typically an even keeled child but today I witnessed her first three-word sentence and an episode where she showed her feisty side. The girls’ daycare had their annual fall festival this morning. I was helping out with Amelia’s class. She was playing with a small plastic kitchen toy when another little girl snatched it out of her hands.

“GIVE IT BACK!” Amelia proclaimed clear as a bell.

My baby, who rarely says anything beyond a one syllable word and whose full vocabulary sounds like either a variation of “ba” or “ma” or “da,” uttered a complete sentence AND defended herself. The other child’s mom was also present and it was all I could do to not start chanting “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,” clear the floor and let the girls wrestle until someone cried “mama” or lost their shirt (you know, because accidental disrobing always happens on Jerry Springer).

These are the moments you can’t record in a baby book–Baby’s First Smackdown.