Over the holidays (yes I am still talking about the holidays…please, it’s only January, I am still recovering) Miss C went over to my mom’s house for the few days I had to actually go in and work check e-mail and drink coffee in the glorious solitude of my office. My mom brought Miss C home one day after lunch and Miss C promptly started hitting Bailey, our 10-year-old Corgi/German Shepherd mix, as hard as she could right above her tail bone with the palm of her bare hand.

My mom: “Oh honey, don’t hit Bailey!”

Miss C: “She likes it Grandma!”

Me: “Oh it’s okay. Bailey loves to be spanked.”

I took yesterday off since school was not in session and Miss C and I had rare a mommy/daughter outing to the big mall south of here after her morning dentist appointment. We hit Claire’s first and did some serious four dollar damage. Good Lord that place is like retail heroin to a 5-year-old girl and as luck would have it they were slashing prices. Miss C spent her hard earned allowance on a pink Barbie wallet, an adorable pair of sheer white daisy fairy wings that I still can’t believe were just a dollar, Hello Kitty lipgloss in a toy cell phone, and a mini Doodle Bear. I couldn’t come home empty handed for Miss A, so I picked up some Dora slippers sporting some frou frou maribou for a big fat dollar.

After all these exhaustive major purchases that required us to make such life changing decisions as, “Do I want the Barbie wallet, which I could use for cookie and milk money at school, or do I want to invest in the sparkly plastic headband trio?,” we headed upstairs and stopped at the pet shop on our way to browse, yes just browse, in Build A Bear and the Disney Store. Seriously if Miss C had known that all this was on our afternoon agenda, her mind would have exploded just trying to wrap itself around the awesomeness. I have skillfully denied both my children the pleasure of Build A Bear since our neighborhood mall has been slowly dying for years and the best thing going for it was a generic Chuck E. Cheese and a working elevator.

But back to the pet shop. I am easily distracted by retail therapy.

There were all sorts of adorable pedigreed puppies but I bet none of them grows up to have a spanking fetish like Bailey.

Mutts rule!

to Whymommy, mom to two little boys under the age of 4. She is having a double mastectomy today and has been battling a rare form of breast cancer, inflammatory breast cancer, for some time.

p.s. She is posting updates on her blog via Twitter and is now in post-op! 

Today a whole bunch of wonderful blogging women are hosting a virtual baby shower for Julie at Mothergoosemouse. I’ve been reading Julie’s blog for a long time. She’s also a mom to two little girls and she and husband Kyle are about to welcome a third child to the mix…a boy!

Now I know absolutely nothing about raising little boys. Nada, zilch. My own big brother is seven years older than me, and with three big sisters our house was always fairly estrogen heavy. My best friend, however, has three sons (she started humming the theme song to My Three Sons the day she called to tell me she found out she was having a third boy) and I have to say I’ve noticed some overriding themes at their house.

Boys like things that go vroom! Cars, trucks, tractors (if you’re here in the South like us), etc.

Boys like things that are powered by remote control. (See above.)

Boys like balls. (Stop it.) Footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, Nerf balls. You name it. Balls rule!

Boys like to eat. You should see my best friend’s walk-in pantry and the snack supply. It’s enough to feed a small army. However, when boys get older, like my brother, they tend to have nothing but beer and mustard in their refrigerators.

Boys take a licking and keep on ticking. My best friend has experienced the joy of playground concussions. Awesome!

And now on to my own observation about my favorite boy, the hubby.

If a boy is raised up right, he’ll grow up to be a wonderfully patient daddy. And if he’s lucky enough to be surrounded by women, like my hubby, he might even let his little girls dress him up..while football is on.

Now that is the mark of a good man!

Congratulations Julie, Kyle, Tacy and CJ!

And if you have any words of wisdom to Julie as she prepares to welcome a little more testosterone to their household, please feel free to leave them here!

Two more of my blog friends, Colleen and Nicole, have now been there, done that and have welcomed their own beautiful sons to their formerly all-girl household.

I finally got a haircut and highlights on Friday. My last haircut was in November and with the awesome tri-tone roots I was sporting, I was one missed shampoo from looking like a homeless woman. I’d have to look a my calendar to see when I last got highlights. I was overdue for them in December but having to write an unexpected check to the hospital for almost $400 just a few weeks before Christmas inspired me to try to touch them up myself. My advice to you ladies is step away from the Miss Clairol and, when in doubt, always stick to blonde, unless you want ghetto hair. I started freaking out when my roots looked to be turning a fiery copper red and I washed the solution out, so it wasn’t too bad. I told my hairdresser about the entire red stripe fiasco and she smiled and smugly nodded. “That’s why people shouldn’t do their own color at home.”

I got home at 6 with both girls, handed them over to the hubby’s very capable hands, and headed over to Nashville blog buddy Malia’s home. She hosted a lovely spa party and I got to sip wine and get pampered along with several very cool bloggers (Aunt B., Shauna, Kathy T., Jag, Lesley, and Mari.) And Malia, I am still thinking of that delicious chocolate cake you made!

Yesterday I took the girls to visit my mother-in-law. She has two weeks of radiation treatments left and is doing well, but please continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers. I took a nap at my inlaws house while the girls watched a movie and then I went shopping at Belk for over an hour and a half. All this lounging around reminded me of LBK (Life Before Kids) and I realized how I once took for granted the ability to soak my feet in sea salts and sip on a glass of wine without someone shrieking, “Mommy, she’s hitting me!”

Although I consider myself feminine, I’m not really a girly girl. I don’t think I’ve had a professional manicure since the 1990s. So to indulge in so much pampering in the past 48 hours was indeed a luxury. I may go all out later today and fire up my pumice stone. I know. Somebody stop me!

Miss A picked up on the pampering theme for the weekend and broke into big sister’s hot pink glitter Barbie makeup case last night. She got her grubby little hands on a tube of blue lipgloss. What sadist decided that blue should be a universal option in play makeup sets? I mean blue is such an attractive lip color, especially when you’re not raising your child to audition to be a part of the Blue Man Group or to moonlight as a Smurfette.

She wasn’t very happy when I took it away from her.

We carpool to school with another family and I usually have the afternoon shift. This week, however, my work schedule is all over the place since I am plowing through Major Work Project and the bulk of my deadlines are this week.

Yesterday morning I was driving Miss C and her friend to school. We live near a four-way stop and as we approached it and slowed down I saw another driver approaching from the left in a mini-van. She glanced at us and kept driving. Granted she slowed down a bit, but she definitely did not stop and she definitely did not do the rolling stop.

It was all I could do to not shout out something really inappropriate. I quelched my desire to fling out some significant obscenities as I remembered that Miss C’s friend’s dad is a minister of music at one of the big Baptist churches in town. Instead I honked my horn and yelled out the dirtiest non-curse word I could think of…

“TURD!”

Updated January 26: Bebemiqui is the winner! Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered.

Maternity clothes were stuck in a time warp of fugliness until some brilliant fashion industry executive realized that being knocked up doesn’t mean you want to wear unflattering clothes. When I got pregnant with Miss C in 2001, Target, GAP, and Old Navy were all jumping on the hip maternity wear bandwagon. Thank God, because my super comfortable Liz Lange Target maternity black jersey pants saw me and my belly through just about every work day.

Ditto for baby clothing. Not every mom wants their little boy to wear puppy dog sunsuits or their little girl to wear pink gingham bloomers, although I have to say we are pretty partial to pink around here. Just not necessarily gingham.

Childish Clothing, favorited by celebrity moms like Heidi Klum and Mariska Hargitay, was founded by former MTV executive Skye Hoppus, wife of Blink 182 frontman Mark Hoppus, who saw a need for fashion-forward maternity and children’s clothing. They sent me this adorable onesie (size 3 to 6 months) for a giveaway…model baby not included.

How to enter: Visit Childish Clothing and check out all the cool mom and kid clothing. Come back here and leave a comment on this post saying which of their products you like best. I love this brown and teal poplin summer maternity dress (on sale) and this flattering solid jersey sleeveless summer maternity top (also on sale!)

To receive two entries in the drawing, leave a comment here telling which of their products you like best and link to this post from your blog.

I’ll select a winner at random from all qualifying comments left by midnight Friday, January 25. You don’t need a blog or website to enter, but you do need a valid e-mail address. And if you want to post the pink snowman Snowy Days Giveaways button on your sidebar, just e-mail me for the code.

Here’s the scoop on the upcoming Snowy Days Giveaways:

Giveaway four (posting January 25) is for a gift certificate for a free pack of Mabel’s Labels, cute personalized labels that are dishwasher and microwave proof.

Giveaway five (posting February 1) is for a $25 coupon good for the wonderful online baby and children’s boutique, Little Piddles. (Check out the adorable musical dress-up dresses and skirts….a certain 2-year-old is getting the Swan Lake skirt for her 3rd birthday in March.)

Giveaway six (posting February 8) is for a 50 percent coupon off a one-year online backup solution by my husband’s company, MouseCalls Computer Services, which would be ideal for all of you moms who are small business owners (or someone like me who has 9.5 million photos stored on her laptop.)

I may have a seventh giveaway for a personalized children’s book. Stay tuned!

One of my husband’s clients lost his daughter, Anna, on Monday night. Although she had epilepsy, she was doing very well with treatment. She died unexpectedly in her sleep at their home. The family had just taken a trip to Disney World and although I did not know Anna, I hear she was your typical 6-year-old little girl who loved princesses and playing dress up and spending time with her brothers and mom and dad.

I can’t imagine the heartbreak they are experiencing.

I don’t know the story behind this beautiful photo of Anna, but her dad has a copy of it hanging in his office. Miss C saw it and asked if Anna was an angel. I definitely think so.

My husband helped set up a website for an organization founded by her parents and named in her honor, which raises money for research and awareness about epilepsy. Here is the link.