I’ve received a lot of aggressive reader mail via Facebook regarding my colleague, Shawn Bean’s, blog, A Letter to Caylee. Surprisingly, many of you were insulted by it. As a single mom, raising a little boy, with no physical participation from his dad, I know I’m probably supposed to feel the same way about Bean’s blog—especially since he cited a study conducted by the National Fatherhood Initiative that stated, father absence is connected to higher rates of physical and emotional neglect, teen pregnancy and incarceration. Bean went on to say, “a missing dad isn’t only bad for Caylee, but for all of us.” I feel painted into a corner, here. I don’t associate myself, my child, his absent dad, with any of the above. That is all worst case scenarios. Absent dads can equal a lot of things: The father died in the 9-11 attacks. The mother is a choice mom and went to a sperm bank. Two moms are raising a child. Or, like me, the father left when mom was 11-weeks-pregnant and started a new life in another state. But, let’s play Devil’s advocate.

Welcome back from the long Fourth of July weekend. I hope you all had as much fun as JD and I did. Our weekend kicked off on Friday. I invited my single mom friend, Mareesa and her son Cristiano over to swim at our condo. We had a pizza picnic for lunch and played in the pool for three hours. Between dips the boys raced trucks and cars on the patio and Mareesa and I told them to stop running 40 times iii-yiii-iii. Next, we came inside and the boys played with the train table while the moms had a cold corona each. An hour later we took our boys out for steak and ice cream. JD was bathed and passed out by 8 P.M. and I was alone to fold laundry, write out monthly bills and pack for our weekend trip to Uncle Carlo’s condo at Bradley Beach. Needless to say, Friday night hasn't equaled party in nearly 4 years. Sometimes I miss it. But I always have my eye on the prize -- JD.

JD loves cars. No, he really, really loves cars. My entire weekend was dedicated to cars. If you’re reading parenting.com, then I have to believe you know exactly what this past weekend marked—the debut of Disney Pixar’s Cars 2. This was an epic event in my household and something that was marked on the calendar. We counted down. We crossed days off. With Cars stickers. We purchased a Cars 2 book that described the basic plot and we studied up. We bought all of the new cars: Francesco, Finn and Holley. We ate car-shaped pretzels. We pushed a Fisher-Price Disney Pixar Cars 2 Bubble Mater on the grass. And I did something top-secret, which kind of went along with the Cars 2 spy theme…

As a single mom, I really value the time my brothers and dad spend with JD (Look at my dad and JD at this old car show - squuueee!).. I think it’s really important that JD get regular guy-to-guy time. What that means, well...last night when my brother, Carlo, was over I found myself biting my tongue.