Seven

Happy birthday to

the amazing Cubby.

A Comedy of Baking Errors

My mission this morning was to bake, assemble, and decorate 24 cupcakes and an ice cream cake. The cupcakes are for Cubby's birthday celebration at school tomorrow. The ice cream cake was his request for his actual birthday on Saturday.

Okay. I can do this. I may be The World's Worst Baker (title confirmation pending), but I will focus and follow a recipe and make cake. Lots of cake.

I quadrupled Grandma Bishop's Chocolate Cake recipe (found in the comments of this post), which did require a lot of concentration so I could make sure that I actually quadrupled every single ingredient and didn't, say, only double the amount of eggs or something.

I didn't do that. But I did realize I didn't have enough sugar, so half the sugar was light brown sugar. And I didn't have any buttermilk, so I used yogurt and regular milk. And I used butter instead of lard (sorry, Grandma Bishop). And I forgot to add the flour.

No, seriously. I forgot to add the flour. Do I get my title now?

Luckily, I realized this in time to actually add the flour, not, like, when I was baking them or something.

A quadruple recipe made 24 large cupcakes, plus two thin layers for the ice cream cake. The frosting was just butter, powdered sugar, and milk.

I decorated the cupcakes with M&Ms. The reason I decorated them with M&Ms was that when I took Jack to the store with me early this morning specifically to get colored sugar and that gel stuff to write on cakes (what is that called?), the store was closed.

Oh yes. It was.

So I stopped at the gas station instead and got some M&Ms. The kids will probably like those better, anyway.

Also, I made sure to put exactly six M&Ms on each cupcake. You know why I did that? Because I have three children, that's why, and I know damn well that at least some of the kids in that class are going to be counting M&Ms to make sure they get as many as everyone else. Because that's what my children do.

Also also, I actually shifted the colors of the M&Ms around so as to have a pleasing variety of colors on each cupcake. Because who wants the cupcake with only brown and orange M&Ms? No one, that's who.

I haven't yet actually decorated the ice cream cake, but we do indeed have cake. Lots and lots of cake.

Hooray.

Fun in the Snow . . . I Guess

In which Charlie learns that bikes are useless in a foot of snow.

Cubby gets a harsh physics lesson on gravity and momentum courtesy of the sled and a steep incline.

And Jack avoids the whole scene by escaping to the barn to sit on the riding mower.

Sorry, kids. Better get used to it. We won't be seeing bare ground for months yet.

My Life in Three Words

Yesterday when I was sitting on the couch looking at the laptop computer, Charlie came to sit by me and announced disparagingly, "There are about 150 things that are more important than staring at a computer."

"You're right," I said, shutting the computer and pulling him into my lap. "And you know what the names of three of them are? Charlie, Cubby, and Jack."

"Yes," he said with satisfaction. "And us . . . we're your life."

Truer words have never been spoken. And what a sweet life it is.

Skunk Boys at School

Today is "Crazy for Kindness" at Cubby and Charlie's school, which meant they could wear crazy socks or have crazy hair for The Great Kindness Challenge. They do not own any crazy socks, and it's sort of hard to have crazy hair when you have a buzz cut. Except . . .

I was planning on giving them their monthly head-shaving this weekend anyway. So last night I shaved everything except a strip down the middle, thinking it would be like a mohawk. The contrast in length wasn't enough to really look like much, though, so this morning I added some of my mousse, sifted some cornstarch over that, and then hair sprayed it in place.

Possibly the lamest crazy hair ever, but I didn't have much to work with.

Jack of course demanded that he get the same thing his brothers did, so I sifted some cornstarch onto his head too.

Isn't he lucky to have such an indulgent mother?

They then spent the time before the school bus came crawling around and sticking their, ahem, dupas* in each other's faces to spray like a skunk. 

Sorry, teachers. This was maybe not my most thought-out plan. But hey, you want crazy hair? You get crazy boys. 

* Do you know the word "dupa"? This is a Polish word my Milwaukee-raised father used when I was a child in place of the word "butt," which was a word we were not allowed to use. Except when I looked up dupa just now, I found that its most common meaning is actually "ass," so he was really swearing in Polish throughout my entire childhood. HA.

The Great Grocery Store Exercise Plan

Did you know that pushing a grocery cart is an excellent workout for your core? Well, it is if you wait to go to the store until you're out of every fresh fruit and vegetable, plus things like olive oil and big cans of tomatoes, resulting in a extra-heavy cart that requires some exertion to get rolling, maneuver around corners, and bring to a halt before running over your fellow shoppers.

At least I didn't have a kid in the cart, too. I might have strained something.

Kindness in Action

Cubby and Charlie's school is participating in The Great Kindness Challenge, which is all very nice and wholesome and I hope results in, uh, greater kindness all around.

Yesterday was the first day of the challenge activities (whatever those might be--I'm a little fuzzy on the details of checklists and so on), and Cubby apparently was very inspired by it all.

After dinner when I finished up a roll of paper towels, I gave him the cardboard tube to play with on the condition that he not menace anyone with it.

Not only did he not menace with it, he unrolled it to create the following sign:

Perhaps the location above the thermostat is meant to remind us that acts of kindness can warm our cold hearts? Or maybe that's just the best stretch of bare wall he could reach with the step stool.

He also put one on their bedroom door, thereby claiming our whole house for The Great Kindness Challenge. 

And then, less than five hours after those signs were posted, I was awakened by Charlie crying in our room because Cubby had gotten cold and stolen Charlie's down comforter while Charlie was sleeping.

Cubby's commitment to the challenge is truly inspiring. And apparently confined to school.