We're the neighbors with the crying baby

You've heard about how relaxing it can be for a parent to hear a crying baby on the plane, and just be so glad it's not her (or his) own. Well, except for in the middle of the night, that's how I feel about barking dogs. I was a bit concerned moving into an apartment with dogs, after we were left stranded once in the extremely dog-unfriendly town of LA, forced to choose between a prostitute haven/affordable hotel and a luxury $300 a night hotel where the doggie gets it's own welcome basket. The one we reserved allowed us to stay one night, then promptly evicted us the next morning (seems they changed their dog-policy like the day before). Anyway, our dogs have been sparingly quiet here - bark a little when someone passes by, rush the squirrels, but otherwise even my 3YO has been able to walk them a bit.

So now what do I have to fear? My tantrum-prone son, who likes to have at least 3 crying fits a day, preferably at the bottom of the stairs. Ugh. This morning I got to carry two crying children to the car, but after school is the worst, when he's tired and not sure what he wants. Grandma and grandpa came to visit and the kids showed them around the new place, but with the pool, puppy and playstructure calling to them, my poor guy got all perturbed. And what did he choose as the final straw? The dog poop. He wanted me to take it back out and re-throw it away. Whatever. So far no complaints or dirty looks. Although twice the dog escaped and while we were right there chasing him, got a grating, stating the obvious "your dog's not on a leash" from some women, I think it may have been the same women each time.

I've already spaced on posting on my multitasking - doh! This morning I managed to:

• Drop the kids off at school with only a few meltdowns


• Pick up a load of stuff from the house, where I noticed the darn cleaning people never showed up yesterday which adds two more things to my list, namely retrieve the money I've prepaid to them and find some "move-out" cleaners


• Get my post-fitness assessment - woohoo bootcamp works folks - I've gained 3 lbs of muscle, which means I've lost fat weight, dropped a few fat %s and my pants aint so tight.

And now I'm off to check out an aftter-school program, take my car to a body shop and call into a meeting. Oh, and sign up for summer camp (for the kids, not me, unfortunately)