How Does Your Garden Grow, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Edited to add: Pssssttttt…..here I am with the new wheels.

My eight-year-old Pathfinder quit running Wednesday because that is what happens when you are counting on a nice little tax refund and you might splurge and get your eyeballs “fixed.” Wheels trump eyeballs every time. Mama must have a reliable mama mobile.

Hubby had cleared his afternoon yesterday so we could drive about an hour north to scope out a prospective SUV I’d found after a couple of hours of research on every website known to man, from CarMax to Craigslist. Miss A was under the weather so I had kept her home from daycare and she went along for the car shopping expedition. I know. We like to live dangerously. Have you ever taken a small child car shopping?

Miss A was a real trooper during all the various stops we made to get the financial part squared away and I made sure one of those stops included the dollar store for some cold cash bribery items as, of course, I’d forgotten to bring anything to keep her entertained, not even a pack of crayons and a dog eared coloring book. Once it hit 5 p.m., though, we were all wilting and had reached that pivotal point of signing all the important paperwork upstairs at the dealership in the financial office. Miss A was unraveling before our very eyes and I couldn’t sign the paperwork fast enough. She was squirming, kicking her shoes off, throwing her socks, trying to put her bare sweaty feet up on the desk, refusing to sit still, and generally being a very tired 3-year-old. I couldn’t really blame her as I was ready to go home, too, but no one would accept that type of behavior from a 38-year-old woman.

She finally wriggled from the hubby’s arms, dashed out of the room, and I took off after her down the hallway.

I looked left and right and did not see her. It was eerily quiet.

I heard a door at the end of the hall to the right slam.

I walked down and turned the door knob which led to a very large windowed corner office overlooking the car dealer showroom.

It was locked. A car salesman heading down to the showroom looked back up at me over his shoulder and smiled… “Oh, she locked herself in the big boss’s office!”

Miss A had locked herself in the private office of the car dealership owner. The man whose very name was emblazoned on hundreds of shiny cars out on the lot.

OH MY GOD!

Visions of my child locked in an office for hours, starving and ransacking a car dealership owner’s private office as she foraged for a juice box and a pack of crackers rushed through my brain. This could make the 6 o’clock news in small town America!

Then I heard her on the other side and snapped back to reality. She was looking up at me through the glass, looking like a real stinker, obviously finding the situation very humorous. A man who looked amazingly like the businessman depicted in the stately portrait hanging on the office wall ambled up behind her and opened the door. He was very congenial and smiling. I was profusely apologetic and sweating. He offered Miss A jelly beans. I politely declined and grabbed my wayward child.

And then Miss A took wriggled away once again and ran down the hall in the opposite direction, ready for another adventure.

p.s. I am now the proud owner of a sharp black Ford Explorer with a sunroof. I haven’t had a sunroof since I was in college! The girls love it and so do I.

He was eerily still.

I peered into the bowl and I knew.

“Mommy what’s wrong with Blue Red?” Miss C walked over and stood beside me.

“Uh, I think he’s just sleeping…oh. I think Blue Red is really ASLEEP. He’s not moving.” (Emphasis on “asleep,” which was code for hubby: “Blue Red is dead. I need some parental backup!”)

Miss C lost her Betta fish Monday night. She had had him for nearly three years, which in fish years seems to be fairly antiquated.

She wanted to bury him with a blue dolphin flashing light we got at the circus a few years ago, but we talked her into laying him to rest with some of his plastic plants from his fish bowl. We’re going to have a burial later today and although our neighbor’s daughter seems keen on attending, I asked that she respect our decision to have a private funeral. Blue Red would want it that way. He is now floating in state in a plastic dollar store cup up on the mantel.

Blue Red was part of the grand big girl room and big girl bed unveiling three summers ago. Miss A was just a few months old and we had Miss C moved out of the crib and nursery. A fish seemed to be the perfect accessory to her new bedroom and the hubby took her out shopping for a friend with fins.

I know Miss C is handling this well because one of the first things she asked after we confirmed Blue Red’s death was, “Can I get a new fish?”

Being a typical girl and Type A planner like her mama, she already has the details mapped out. The new fish shall be a girl, it shall be red, and it shall be named Violet. Considering Blue Red was blue and black, this makes perfect sense to me.

We’re going to wait until the weekend to pick out a new fish, though. It’s only right that we honor Blue Red’s memory for a few days.

While other little soccer sisters seem content to sit sweetly with their parents on the sidelines, Miss A seems hell bent on running the hubby and I ragged. We take turns making sure she doesn’t bolt out on to the field, jump in the nearby river, or hijack one of the soccer league sanctioned golf carts zipping through the throngs of jersey clad kids.

Our league games are held on a large field that is essentially a river bottom, and after last week’s heavy rains the river was up considerably and Miss A was determined to “go see it and look for crocodiles Daddy!” (Too much Diego me thinks.) After the hubby had carried her on his shoulders for the umpteenth time so they could stroll over and check out the river bank, she started rolling around in the grass. Now I’m a big fan of the WTAO (Wear Their Asses Out) method, and seeing this as an opportunity for Miss A to get her ya yas out and pass out in the car on the way home, I let her roll away, her long hair getting full of grass and leaves. Plus Miss C’s soccer game was down at the end of the fields and Miss A could roll to her heart’s content without getting run over by a bunch of kids or zonked in the head with a wayward soccer ball.

While she rolled in the grass I walked alongside her, thinking after a few feet she’d surely get tired. Surely. Meanwhile the other soccer sisters are either sitting in their parents laps or playing at the sidelines. Only our child is rolling in the grass in a most unladylike fashion.

Miss A proceeded to roll a good 20 feet or so and then she spotted a ditch and that force of nature that attracts all children…muddy water! She started running toward the ditch but that’s where I had to put my foot down. Because it’s one thing to roll around in the grass, and it’s another thing entirely to go ditch diving into a stream of muddy water.

Now that Miss A is fully potty trained I’m embracing the diaper free days/Pull Up nights and I generally let her do her bathroom business on her own. I’ll usually check in on her to make sure she’s washing her hands and not just faking me out by turning on the cold water and splashing for two seconds, but on the whole I’m a hands-off parent when it comes to the wipeage, unless it’s a full throttle poop.

Of course there are moments like the other night at the pizza parlor when she waddled out of the game room with her underwear and pants down around her ankles and announced to the entire restaurant, “I GO POTTY!” and I ran over, swooped her up, and we sprinted to the ladies room before she christened the floor.

This laissez faire bathroom supervision was all well and good until last week when I realized why we were going through toilet paper at an alarming rate. Miss A was stopping up the toilet every time she had a bowel movement and then it dawned on me. Apparently she saw no problem with using up to a half a roll of toilet paper when using the restroom at home. They must really ration it at daycare or something. Next thing I know she’ll be hording it under her bed and I’ll be shouting:

“No toilet paper for you!”

Any way, we had a little talk (more like “INTERVENTION!”) and I gave a demonstration of the proper amount of toilet paper to use, lest we completely clog up our sewer line and end up spending her college fund on calling in a plumber.

There’s no sense in our diaper savings going down the toilet. Literally.

Tiaras sparkled under a spinning disco ball, bejeweled wands waved back and forth in the air to the beat of a Hannah Montana song, updos were thoroughly lacquered with silver glitter hair spray, and several divas had already taken to the stage in heels. No, this wasn’t drag queen night at a Key West bar or a beauty pageant a la Little Miss Sunshine, but a weekend birthday party for one of Miss C’s classmates at one of those fancy child centric salons designed to bring out the inner princess in even the most tomboyish little girl.

I was admittedly skeptical about such glitz and glamour for 5 and 6-year-olds, but a few minutes into the party I sat laughing with the other moms to the point of nearly crying and thanking God I wasn’t paying the bill. I’ll have to admit that for the overall “wow” factor this was a little girl’s dream and possibly every other parent’s nightmare once the party bar is placed this high. Parties at these girly girl salons make an afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese seem as glamorous as the soup and potato bar at Golden Corral. There’s even a hot pink stretch limo to rent for those parents who aren’t worried about raising the next suburban Paris Hilton. The runway presentation of the little princess party goers ended with a conga line weaving throughout the store before the girls headed to the party room for cake. No, I am not kidding.

The girls loved every minute of it, although for a few girls who seemed fairly self conscious about whooping it up on the runway. I could foresee the future partiers in 13 years or so. It was easy to guess which girls would be dancing on a table at a frat party and which girls would be content to sit on the couch, silently shaking their heads as their friends made fools of themselves. Miss C was a little hesitant, but when she saw the mosh pit of twirly costumes to choose from she nearly dove headfirst into the pile of dress up clothes. Her dress of choice was a fancy sequined mermaid gown.

Prepping for her diva debut on the runway.

Miss C has been invited to another girly girl salon party at the same swank place this weekend, but she has a soccer game at the same time. She’s not really happy about missing a free updo and manicure.

We’ve always managed to have pretty simple birthday parties, but the kindergarten party circuit is definitely more elaborate. I guess we could always do a makeover party at our house this summer but the thought of a dozen girls painting their fingernails and screaming Hannah Montana songs at the top of their lungs is nearly enough to make me write a blank check.

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.