Lows and Highs (Some Sugar Induced...)
Friday, December 4, 2009 at 9:29PM You know how it goes...you return from vacation and have to face the regularly scheduled program. There is the early morning rush to get to school the next day (after a very late night), there are at least three mountains of laundry to conquer, there is a refrigerator to restock. On top of all that, there are NO cousins to entertain your children, there are NO mothers-in-law (or mothers, depending on where you've been!) to cook the meals, there are NO sisters-in-law with which to laugh, and share stupid stories, and run around pulling off crazy shenanigans like getting all six of the younger cousins to a portrait studio just hours before your flight since that is the last chance you have to do it on this particular trip and you forgot until today. (We thought we had already said our goodbyes the day before, and so they were wild. I'm sure the photographer closed the studio once we left so she could go home and take a shower. She had to work for her money during that shoot...)
Grandma also let them help her decorate the Christmas tree and then made cookies the day we left...we squeezed in a lot before heading to the airport. It was a lot of fun, but on the heels of such good times quickly follows...
THE VALLEY.
This week has been a long one, and not entirely awful, but definitely hard. It's hard to go from sunny Florida to...
snowy Dallas! The morning after we got home, we were greeted with a little snowfall. It was very pretty, really, but so cold outside! Even though we only live a few houses down from Christian's school, Mike drove us over that morning.
**Fast forward through the week-lots of laundry, a run to the grocery store, crock-pot cooking**
Christian had a little boy over this afternoon, which was a spontaneous thing...he was supposed to come over just before we left for our trip, but Michaela had a fever, so we postponed the playdate. Today during the class stitching the two boys asked their respective mothers if they could,"Please, please, please have a playdate?!?!?!" I told her that it was fine if her little man came home with me for a bit after school, and so it was arranged.
Later I took the girls to a craft store in order to get some more thread for the stitching and some yarn for a project Michaela had in mind. Whilst walking down the aisle a little cake pan caught my eye and suddenly I was given a vision of what to do this afternoon with those boys. The pan was a mini-cake pan, with Christmas trees and gingerbread men and it seemed like the perfect idea to bake the little cakes and let the boys decorate them. Michaela, too. Not that they would decorate Michaela, but that Michaela would also decorate the cakes.
Aren't you glad I clarify these things?
We got to the cash register only to notice that we had the wrapper for the yarn, but no yarn. Eliana had apparently left it behind somewhere in the store. Since I had the bar code, I was able to go ahead and pay for everything and then go look for the yarn. This is my life...I am the master of efficiency.
When we got home I got the cake batter ready.
I went and picked the guys up from school, and they played for a bit while I finished baking. Once the cakes were done, they decorated to their hearts' content. When they were done the conversation went something like this (regarding the gingerbread men):
Christian (pointing to all the red parts): This is the blood. (I guess he had been wounded.)
Christian's friend: Mine has lots of blood! (I suppose he, too, had been injured.)
Michaela: There is no blood on mine. (He was missing a leg, though, since she had daintily eaten that part.)
Ah, no gender related stereotypical behavior going on here. Uh-uh, no way. And then right after they finished decorating the boys took off, shooting their finger-guns at all the bad guys, and sneaking around looking like they were doing something very bad (I never found out what). Michaela went back to cutting out snowflakes and decorating those with glitter glue.
Speaking of glitter glue, we had to give Eliana a lesson on how glitter glue is not the same thing as decorative icing, since both were on the table in similar tubes, yet only one is edible. (Well, according to some. The glue might taste better than the decorative icing. I didn't do a full-blown experiment, though, so I have no definitive answer as far as the debate might go.) She's a quick study, so everything was all right.
Before all of the decorating started, Eliana taught me a lesson as well. I should never underestimate a toddler's ability to reach all manner of heights when highly motivated. I was at the oven and heard her say,"It's a boy!" No one was giving birth in my kitchen so I smartly assumed that she had discovered the gingerbread men cakes. (Just call me Sherlock, folks.)
She told me she was eating the boy. "She's a man-eater! Watch out or she'll chew you up..." Just a little heads up for all the young fellas out there.
While she was eating her cake I mixed up some frosting for the big kids.
Then they came running. It was fun (for the most part!). Christian and Michaela quarrelled about I-don't-know-what. I'm sure that Christian's friend thought he had gone to the nut-house, between their arguing and my sweeping up the crumbs constantly (they were sticking on my socks...yuck). He quietly decorated his cakes, glancing at the two of them every now and then.
Once Christian's friend went home, we set about hanging up some snowflakes that Michaela and Christian had made since our real snow was long gone.
This is what Christian took...
and this is what Michaela took...
It's so fun to see the pictures they take. Except when they're better than mine.
And now I have the biggest mess you ever saw in my kitchen to clean up. Who knew that making mini-cakes made such a massive disaster? I think I need to write someone about that...Wilton, maybe? Mini-cakes should lead to mini-disasters. Who's with me?!
life together
Reader Comments (6)
Those little cakes are so cute! I can't believe you've had snow.
What's with all the pictures and none of the friend? Just an observation, Love you
Thanks, Beki! I had a moment. Ha, ha.
Diddy...I don't usually put pics up of other people's kids without a parent's permission...that's all. I did get a cute one of his friend decorating his cakes. And then a couple of the kids with the cakes all together. :)
You may think your house is chaotic, but I think it looks like fun.
Next time let them decorate Michaela. I want to see pictures of THAT!
I just smiled through this! The kids are so cute-I loved reading the things they say & do. Cakes were a great idea--but why oh why must we suffer through the crumbs!!!
you're such a great mom, Christina!