Our House, Is a Very Very Very Fine House, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Between the rain and Miss C recovering from the strep by running around with Miss A yesterday pretending to be gorilla girls and turning her room into a makeshift jungle (I blame watching Tarzan on Disney in lieu of church), our weekend involved a whole lotta indoor play time, much to Bailey’s horror.

Speaking of dressing up, visit me at Blissfully Domestic where I write about battling the Casual Friday Fug and mention things like the co-worker who loved to go braless and my disdain for flip flops at work, even if it’s 100 degrees outside and you just got a pedicure.

I love office supplies. When the stores stock the back-to-school aisles in August I get a euphoric high from looking at all the pretty new pens and notebooks and folders. I remember being thrilled with my new Trapper Keeper notebook and folders, shiny and yet to be plastered with scratch ‘n sniff stickers, and accompanying my mother to our school supply store, just off the town square. Our budget is tight, though, and ordering personalized stationery for myself is not a priority. Getting seven hours of uninterrupted sleep and making it through the day with no pee mishaps, however, is.

American Stationery recently sent me a set of beautiful personalized memos in a trendy aqua and brown for my desk and I have to admit that jotting down a quick phone number on them looks so much nicer than my usual Post It Notes or junk mail envelopes that I use as my personal note pads.

I’m no stranger to American Stationery as my mother has been ordering from them for years (and she has exquisite taste) and she gave me a pretty set of their return address labels at Christmas.

Some more finds from their website (Mother’s Day will be here before you know it):

This note card set which features envelopes with a fun stripe interior.

Pink and black polka dot note cards with a monogram.

Shopping diva theme correspondence cards.

Pink and brown neapolitan notes. I think it would be nothing but appropriate to eat a bowl of neapolitan ice cream while writing on your cute new notecards, just mind the dribble.

Elegant jet black correspondence cards.

Mom’s calling cards.

Design your own cocktail napkins. Since I seem to relate everything to indulging in food or drink, (see neapolitan notes above) you should definitely use these as an excuse to make yourself a nice stiff drink.

As a bonus to my readers, American Stationery has graciously offered a 10 percent discount good through 12/31/08. Just use the code BLONDEMOMBLOG at checkout.

Don’t forget these other discounts just because you are fabulous for reading my blog and not choosing to surf the Weather Channel website instead:

• Go Baby offers 25% off at checkout with the code BLONDEMOMBLOG.
• Sitter City offers 10% off registration with the code BLONDEMOM. Scroll down for the ad at the bottom of my blog. You’ll be doing your part in helping me start the very critical Cute Fall Purse Hunt of 2008 Fund.

Yo VIP let’s kick it

Strep, strep baby

Strep, strep baby

All right stop, collaborate and listen
Strep is back mama’s gonna start bitchin’

Sore throat grabs a hold of Miss C tightly
Keepin’ her cranky daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo I don’t know
Head down to Walgreens, yeah like a pro

Strep strep baby
Strep strep my poor baby

Guess who heard Vanilla Ice on the way home from the pediatrician’s this morning and cranked it for Miss C? (Oh and for me, I’ll admit that I am a total sucker for old school dance music. Yeah I am that mom at the red light.) That song conjures up images of a particular well-gelled dark haired guy I dated in college who would crank that song, much to my amusement and mortification, while he peeled out in his sports car. I was more into INXS and U2 and Depeche Mode at the time. I dated the guy for a few weeks until he told me one Friday night a woeful tale of not having enough money to take me out to dinner, but invited me over to watch a movie at his apartment and then proceeded to show me the new cologne and shirt he’d just purchased at the mall.

So apparently it is very common for kids Miss C’s age to get back-to-back strep. Who knew? All you wise mamas out there, and the elementary school secretary and my neighbor and my mother and…well you all knew and you told me so. I had a gut feeling, too, that we were dealing with strep again. I’m going to have to toss the cute Hello Kitty battery-powered toothbrush I bought the last time we went through this. That’s what I get for investing actual money in a toothbrush and not just using the dentist freebies.

Miss C’s on a new 10-day round of antibiotics, and not as feverish or quite as “sick” this time, but she’ll have to miss her first spring soccer game of the season tomorrow morning. She has a group photo at 8:30, though, so I’m going to drive her down to the field so she can at least take part in that. A girl’s gotta keep up appearances, you know.

The post-school playtime when the girls sit down and play peacefully together for a few minutes almost makes up for the 10 minutes they go temporarily insane when the phone rings and I attempt to have an adult conversation while being pummeled with requests for juice as if they will surely die of thirst and refereeing their cat fights with the silent mouthing of threats and finger pointing.

Of course when I hang up the phone they get along perfectly again. They aren’t biased against just me, though. The hubby gets the same royal treatment whenever he attempts to talk to a client on the phone from home. The dogs also seem to be adversely affected by my talking on the phone, especially if I am on the phone with my boss. Bailey swiped Miss A’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich off the coffee table the other day while I was talking to my boss and it was lunch time Armageddon.

Yesterday was finally one of those glorious early spring days where the girls did nothing but run around in the back yard and play after school and get their new matching pink sandals good and dirty. We all went for a long walk after dinner. Actually the girls “flew” the entire mile, pretending to be baby birds as we have a mama dove on a nest up in the eaves of our house and they are quite enamored with her. The TV sat, cold, silent, and lonely. They had a big bubble bath and went to bed smelling sweet.

Today Miss C woke up with a 100 degree fever.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

p.s. Can kids get strep twice? I honestly don’t think Miss C has strep again since she has a low-grade fever, but she says her throat is sore. As my mom wisely surmised this morning, she didn’t really rest much during Spring Break but we did cancel our trip to Atlanta last Monday so we could stick close to home all week and once her fever broke she was up and running, literally.

Getting ready for school this morning was a little bit rougher than usual because we’ve been on Spring Break Standard Time since last Monday and yesterday there was no school in our county for teacher inservice. I am still waiting for spring to show up at our doorstep with a pitcher of margaritas or fruit tea. Old Man Winter, slovenly and unshaven, torments me instead. Go hibernate for the winter already old man! And hello, Mother Nature? Snow flurries in March? You know you’re ready for spring when you and your husband both declare you will never live further North than Tennessee. Repeat after me, “Beach in May…beach in May…beach in May.” I need some sand in my flip flops, stat. The good news is it’s supposed to be 71 degrees here Thursday. It’s usually about this time every year that I make my annual Home Depot Garden Center run and decide to shave my legs daily.

Here are a few outtakes from the past week as I recover from Spring Break Standard Time and the mass consumption of sugar as I save the girls from certain sugar overload:

(At the Cracker Barrel) Don’t flush the potty! Let mommy do it with her foot.

(At home) Honey please don’t stick your foot in the potty.

No, no, NO! Don’t use that towel baby, it’s got pee all over it.

Miss A please don’t draw on your Easter dress.

You can have a chocolate egg if you get dressed, OKAY?

Miss C come here, you’ve got toilet paper sticking out of your pants.

Oh, that egg does have nuts in it. Give it to Mommy. I’ll eat it.

Me, to Miss A: Let me help you get your panties on straight Miss Tinker-butt.

Miss C chiming in from the next room: Mommy, it’s BOTTOM!

A month before I had Miss C I was in the last few weeks of serving as president for a local business professional organization. I had served on the board for years in various positions and while I enjoyed it, it took a lot of time. Of course when I joined the organization I was a recent college grad, hungry for networking, and the only person I had to get ready in the mornings was myself. My lunch break really was used to eat lunch, and not to run a million errands. Now I do my volunteer work at Miss C’s school. It’s a lot less pressure doing things like hanging up laminated shamrocks and drawing smiley faces on worksheets.

Becoming a parent to a kindergartener has meant I have the opportunity to volunteer for every school event known to man and enroll Miss C in various extracurricular activities, from after school Tae Kwon Do to Spanish lessons. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid my only after school activities were riding my bike and getting to know the multi-faceted characters on Leave it to Beaver and The Munsters.

I’ve known moms I call mommy martyrs. They’re the ones who seem to get some sort of satisfaction over how thin they stretch themselves. When you run into them at the grocery they’ll greet you with “Joe and I went out to dinner the other night while a sitter watched the kids for two hours. We hadn’t eaten dinner out by ourselves in three and a half years!” or “Sally’s taking ice skating lessons, ballet, gymnastics, playing soccer and she’s a Girl Scout this year…it’s crazy but we love it!”

I am a people pleaser, so it’s tough for me to say no, but I’ve learned it’s one of the best ways to resist becoming a mommy martyr.

Visit me at Blissfully Domestic, where I’ve written about balancing home and work. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Easter Bunny, originally uploaded by blondemom.

The Easter Bunny is a big, fat, hairy lie.

By now I think I have the Santa Claus gig down pat, but the Easter Bunny is shrouded in a tangled sugary web of deceit that can only be clarified by biting the heads off marshmallow peeps. (Note to self: Run down to Walgreens tonight to buy more Easter candy for the girls’ baskets since YOU ATE ALL THE JELLY BEANS.)

The Easter Bunny apparently never impressed me much as a child because the only fond memory I have of his visits is of an entirely edible hard candy striped basket I got one year. I’d probably still be breaking off pieces and munching on it at had my mother not finally disposed of it one day when I was at school.

I don’t remember how old I was when I realized that the Easter Bunny was a scam, but it’s possible that I just went along with it for a while just for the candy so I could tolerate getting dressed up for church and being forced to wear itchy tights with my shiny new black patent leather shoes. Growing up in a house where a bowl of Rice Krispies and sweet acidophilus milk was considered a treat, you’ll do anything to score some chocolate.

Here are some Easter Bunny unsolved mysteries that trouble my soul here on Easter eve:

• Is the Easter Bunny male or female? I’ve always assumed he was male, but in this day and age perhaps that’s sexist.
• Where does the Easter Bunny live? Miss C asked me this in all seriousness recently and I was completely dumbfounded. Does he live with Santa and Mrs. Claus at the North Pole? In Easter Land? Peeps-ville? Eggsylvania? Ponyville? The Playboy Mansion?
• If you use the same baskets from year to year, like we do, do you leave them out? Where do you leave them? The hearth, the kitchen table, or the front doorstep?
• How does the Easter bunny get in your house? He can’t use the chimney. That’s blasphemous against Santa!
• What is the Easter Bunny’s mode of transportation? A carrot mobile? Does he flap his big giant bunny ears and fly?
• Does the Easter Bunny have little bunny helpers?

I live with a very inquisitive 5 1/2 year old who has seen all the Easter displays at Target, Wal-Mart, and Publix and I have a feeling it won’t be long before she figures out this Easter Bunny thing is a big charade concocted by the candy industry.