Mother Dear sent me the story below in an email this morning. I couldn't resist posting it. To know Mother Dear is to love her. She has a million rules…no tv, no juice, no McDonalds..her little Goose has some rules too, namely challenge Mother Dear in every way possible.

I actually took Goose to Max Brenner's restaurant for brunch with her
friend Jamie, where I ordered her a wonderful stack of chocolate
pancakes which she refused to eat.  When we decided that we had made
enough commotion in the restaurant (Goose was, literally, ringing Jamie around the rosie in the aisle), we made our way outside where Abby promised Jamie an ice cream for dessert (it was dessert for Jamie, you see, because she actually ate two whole cheeseburger
sliders and an order of fries in the time  my daughter spent throwing
bite sized pieces of pancake and banana at me).  So, we made our way to
the ice cream truck, and I was going to get Goose an ice cream too
because who lets their kid watch some other kid eat an ice cream and
doesn't get them one, even though Goose really didn't want ice cream
and had yet to eat any actual food.  But then the ice cream truck
turned out to be just parked and the ice cream man wasn't there
(remember, rain was imminent), so Jamie started to cry and Abby 
looked desperate – if you promise ice cream to a two-year old you sort
of have to deliver.  So we scanned Union Square, and I pointed out to
her (against my personal feelings on the issue) that McDonald's always
has soft serve.  I mean, you can’t just let a kid cry for undelivered,
promised ice cream while you hold fast to your personal moral battle
against Ronald McDonald.  So, we strolled into the place, past the
horrified judgmental eyes of all the parents feeding their children
organic vegetarian pad thai at Republic next door while telling them
that McDonalds doesn’t really serve food for children.  And, that's
where she saw it – my baby saw other people sitting there eating
french fries.  And she was hungry.  So she asked for some.  And what
could I say?  I mean, there I was: she hadn't eaten anything all day,
she was following Jamie on a quest to top off her meal, she clearly
didn't even want ice cream, and I had wheeled her into this godforsaken
place.  So I bought her a small fries, and much to my chagrin she
inhaled the entire bag and asked for more (I told you those things were
addictive; and at the very least I proved my own point).  She did not
get any more, by the way.  I had already ducked out of there and
discarded the evidence.  She did, however, get ice cream later for
dessert, after she ate her mac and cheese for dinner, at Cold Stone
Creamery.  By the way, have you ever had their sweet cream ice cream -
it's wonderful!

I have a best friend who should be a professor and published author, instead she's a corporate attorney, go figure…In any case this best friend who we shall call Mother Dear is the"Mama" to my favorite 2 year old, who we shall call Goose. 

You'll see Mother Dear's post here as often as possible.

She's fabulous, single, and a mother; yep the total package!

So, I have less than 24 hours left to create a birthday . . .
It's funny, when you're a child you just take for
granted that "special days" will come like magic, and you should.  You
wait for them anxiously, make those silly paper chains to rip off as
you count down the days.  Then the night before, you go to sleep in
your special pajamas and know that when you wake up "it" [christmas,
your birthday, etc] will "be here."  Somehow, some way before you will
appear a day that will delight you in every way, meet all your
expectations and match all your memories of traditions from special
days past,  and still manage to completely surprise you with something
you never could have even imagined.  The anticipation, the excitement,
the satisfaction . . .
Then, one day you become a parent and you realize
that Christmases and second birthdays fall on random Wednesdays with
inclement weather, pressing deadlines, low checking account balances,
and stores that don't actually sell hello kitty cake toppers and no,
they also don't know where you could get one.  And now, you're
backstage and somehow you have turn whatever you've got into "it" and
stay up all night making sure "it" "arrives"on time.  And you're blown
away by the rawness of it all, how there really isn't any Santa or
fairy to help you through, how it is all impossibly just you.  And you
feel the pressure of it, the weight of knowing that you're responsible
for making sure there are no holes in the screen that a little person
could see through and catch a glimpse of the ordinary day that is
behind their special one. 
And so you bend and stretch, make lists, make
phone calls, make plans, make shopping trips while they're napping, and
somehow somewhere in all of that you discover that the day that is
coming is not going to be ordinary at all, but downright
extraordinary.  And you yourself start to feel the rising
antiticipation and by the night before even the acutely giddy awareness
that when you wake up in the morning it will be here, meeting all your
expectations and matching all your memories of special days past, and
the look on your child's face will probably surprise you in ways you
never could have even imagined.  And that feeling is not just you at
all; it is magic.