Mommin' It Up!

November 10, 2009November 10, 2009

Fail Whale

Today could very well prove to be my ultimate (to date, I’m sure there’s more to come) parenting FAIL.

I drop Kate off at my grandma’s on my way to work in the morning, and then my grandma takes her to school. As I left this morning, Kate told me she wasn’t feeling well and that her throat hurt and her back hurt (enter my suspicion – throat and back ailments aren’t a typical combination). She seemed ok, so I headed on, but about halfway through my commute she called again to tell me she wasn’t feeling good (despite her nutritious breakfast of cinnamon rolls and ice cream, which of course was the only thing that could possibly make her throat feel better). We agreed that Grandma would take her temperature, and if she didn’t have a fever, she’d go to school.

Great.

Except she called me again about 15 minutes later, still insisting that she didn’t feel well and she couldn’t go to school. I could, of course, be totally wrong about this, but I really do not think she is sick. Moms can tell these things, right? Yeah, famous last words. So in any case, we decided she would go to school and I said if she still felt bad there, she could have the secretary call me. I am banking on the fact that once she gets there, she will be fine.

However.

After I got off the phone with her, I checked my calendar and wouldn’t you know it, today is the day Kate will get the H1N1 vaccine at school. This day totally crept up on me. I was planning to prepare her for it, but I totally didn’t, and I was afraid that if I called her and told her after all we had gone through debating her attendance today anyway, that it would be a giant disaster.

So now she’s headed to school as we speak (or I type), blissfully unaware of the fact that she’s going to be vaccinated today. Unless, of course, she does know about the vaccination because of school announcements (the same way she found out about the skating party last week that I was conveniently not going to mention), and that’s where this entire problem is coming from.

Or maybe she is sick, and I didn’t believe her. And if she is sick, she shouldn’t be getting the vaccination. And that, my friends, would be a parenting fail of epic proportions.

November 2, 2009

Trick-or-Treat Tradition 2009

Emily told you last year about our Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating together. It has made Halloween a really special holiday for us. I must confess I never had warm and fuzzy feelings about Halloween. I mean I love me some candy, but come on. Now, Halloween has the potential to make me downright MISTY! I mean who wouldn’t get a little choked up at Tinkerbell sweetly smooching Optimus Prime?

Or two Tinkerbell cousins having a pre-trick-or-treat fairy huddle time?

While their Peter Pan took off with one of their trick-or-treat buckets and was ready to GO!?

My favorite part of this year’s trick-or-treat was how much Sophie loved it. She was not exactly an, um, willing participant last year, but this year? She spread her wings and got her some CANDY!

She had a pretty good example. She kept calling Kate “Cake” all night, and she thought Cake was pretty darn awesome!

Of course Joshua loved it, too. He kept running down the street yelling, “Trick-or-treat is finally here!” He has been asking about it ALL MONTH! I thought he looked pretty tough in his Optimus Prime costume!

But the best costume of all?? The award goes to Emily’s husband Andy, who channeled “Earl” from “My name is Earl” so well it was probably the scariest thing I saw ALL NIGHT!

(I would also like to note that Andy was rather proud of his efforts and said, “Jenny will you take my picture and put it on ‘Mommin’ It Up’?” Well of COURSE I WILL!)

Ok, since I take waaaay to many pictures, here are some of my faves from the night:

Optimus Tinkerbell!

Em and Sammers

General cuteness

Pre-TOT meeting

Super-happy Sophie

On their way

We had a great time, and we are blessed with such great cousins to share this with each year!

October 18, 2009

Cake Baking with Emily

That will not be the title of the next hit show on the Food Network.

Jenny and I have a little running commentary regarding our beliefs on cake-baking. She believes she should ~~slave over~~ bake her kids’ birthday cakes herself (you may have heard her mention her neurosis and its accompanying anxiety attacks here or here, or perhaps here, here or here). I believe that my kids should have beautiful birthday cakes, so I do what any rational person would do and call the local bakery.

And here’s why.

Saturday I was looking for an afternoon activity to do with the kids, so I decided we should run over to Target and get a Halloween cake mix and icing (as well as the various and sundry other things that always wind up in my cart there), and use this lovely cake pan to make a pumpkin-shaped cake.

I’ve had this cake pan for a while, but I’d never used it. The package showed pictures of cakes decorated like basketballs, baseballs, tennis balls and the like, and I thought it might come in handy someday. And it was on sale. So anyway, I could just picture the lovely pumpkin Kate and I would make.

Except I accidentally threw away the directions for using the pan, and they are not to be found anywhere on the internet. So I wasn’t sure whether or not to grease the pan (I guessed no, and I guessed wrong), how full to fill each cup (less full than I did), or how long and at what temperature to bake it (350 for like six hours).

So when we eventually pulled it out of the oven, I detected a problem when I tried to get the first section out of the pan. It was, uh, slightly stuck, and about 1/3 of it remained in the pan (see above re: greasing the pan).

Crap.

I soldiered on and took out the rest of the sections, having only marginally better success than with the first, and when I arranged it in a circular shape… well, it was a disaster.

But a little icing can fix anything, right?

Yeah, not so much.

I iced it… and here’s what it looked like (I only wish I was the experienced food photographer that Erin is, because really these pictures just don’t do the cake justice. They make it look better than it did in real life. I’m serious.)

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Then Kate put (waaaaaay too many) sprinkles on… Behold our masterpiece.

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It was so unappealing that we had no interest in eating it. Cake usually does not stand a chance around our house, but this one sits on the kitchen counter, untouched.

That, my friends, is why I will never, ever make my kids’ birthday cakes.