Err, mah BABIES’-Daddy!

Seriously, what is the proper grammer for the daddy to TWO babies? The world needs to know.

This weekend, I kept pestering James to tell me whether he wanted me to make him a cake, or if I should just buy the ultra decadent so-much-chocolate-it-may-kill-you cake from Costco (the tall layer one, with shaved chocolate on top of the frosting. OK, I’m salivating now. Good lord.)

He said, “Oh, you can just get the costco one, that’s fine.”
me: “Or I could make you one.”
him: “That’s fine too.”
me: “I’m gonna make you one.”
him: “ok already!”

I wanted to make him a cake because I haven’t baked anything in a while, and I love to bake. And also because it’s much funner with the kids to make one than to just go buy one. We had the important “what kind of cake should we make for daddy?” discussion.

“Carrot cake!” was Ethan’s vote. I quickly corrected him. (He’s really come about-face on this carrot cake business.)
“Well, carrot cake is good, but I think maybe chocolate. Because your daddy LOVES the chocolate. He is a chocolate lover.”

Jocelyn loved this description of James and has used it multiple times over the past few days. “Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER!”

So in the end, I decided to make him a marble cake, because that’s what his mom used to make him when he was a kid. Only I wanted to fancify it, so instead of just using a 13×9 cake pan like the recipe said to, I decided to put it in 2 round pans.

Marble cake is a vanilla cake where you take part of the batter and add chocolate to it, and then pour the vanilla batter in first, and the chocolate on top and swirl it around a bit so when it’s baked and you cut into it, it’s all marbley with vanilla and chocolate cake.

So, since James IS a chocolate lover, I debated aloud on whether I should make the primary cake chocolate, instead of vanilla, so that would make the majority of the batter chocolate, which he likes better. Then I decided not to, and said aloud, “I should probably just stick to the recipe.”

james: “So NOW you’re going to stick to the recipe, but when I cook, you always want me to do things your way even when I’m trying to stick to the recipe!”

Pish. That’s all I have to say about that. (“Pish” is good for when you have no leg to stand on, see.)

So last night, I prepared my batter and sprayed my 2 round pans, and had the batter all ready to pour, but it did NOT LOOK like nearly enough batter to fill 2 round pans. So I poured the whole thing into ONE round pan and right then, I could tell I was really screwed. It was way too full. But it’s a MARBLE cake, so I couldn’t transfer some of it to the other cake pan or it would stop being marble-y and just be … all mixed together brown cake? Not marble cake? Not sure what you would call it! So, knowing I had screwed the pooch, I just put the over-full round pan on a cookie sheet and slid it into the oven.

(Another reason one should probably not make marble cake in 2 round pans – the “marble” effect is probably better acheived in a single big pan. Then there is plenty of each batter (plain and chocolate) to make it the nice marbly effect when one batter is put on top of the other batter. If you split all that in half, as you would have to with 2 pans, there’s not as much of each type of batter to blend with each other it probably wouldn’t make as nice of an effect.)

Sure enough, 30 minutes later it had overflowed and half the cake had bubbled out onto the sheet pan.

So for James’ birthday, he gets the costco it-will-send-your-blood-sugar-to-new-heights chocolate cake AND he gets to taunt me about tweaking the recipe with disastrous results, which I usually bristle at with unbridled fervor. Now he can tease me all he likes and I will just have to TAKE it because of my cake disaster. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY! MAKE MY LIFE HELL! 🙂

This morning James made the “i’m getting out of bed” movements, so I quick told him to stay put for a few minutes and scurried into the kids room.

me: “Guess what today is?”
Now usually, Ethan answers these sort of questions first. But today, Jocelyn totally put the smack down and answered instantly.
j: “DADDY’S BIRTHDAY!!!!!”
m: “You guys want to climb into our bed and sing him happy birthday?”
j&e: “YEAAAAAAHHHH!!”

And so they did. And it was so super cute. Cuter than bunnies on top of puppies, they were so cute.

Then I told the kids, “Guess what, guys. Mommy ruined the birthday cake! So I’m going to pick you up early from school, and we’re going to go to costco to get one from there.”

Ethan: “Yay! Carrot cake!”
Jocelyn: “No! Not carrot cake. CHOCOLATE. Because Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.”

That girl. She kills me with the CUTE.

So this morning, we had a gouge or two out of the ruined birthday cake for a post breakfast snack, and tonight we’ll be lighting candles on top of the costco death-by-chocolate cake.

Because James is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.

Happy birthday to the best baby-daddy a girl could have!

love you sweetie.

j: i went to lunch with my militant atheist friend today.
a: kurt?
j: *laugh* yeah, kurt.
a: *laugh*
j: where’d you go?
a: rubino’s.
j: ahh.
j: we got a pizza.
j: and fries.
j: … and chocolate chip cookies.
a: okay then!
j: You wouldn’t think those would go together, but at this place they do.
j: Oh, and garlic knots.
a: Garlic knots? like they tied the bread dough in a knot? and slathered with garlic butter?
j: Yes. As long as they don’t go overboard on the garlic butter, they are gooood.
a: that reminds me. you know what i’m looking forward to?
j: what?
a: on sunday? at the carnival?
j: what?
a: funnel cake. mmmm.
j: that is all you.
a: you don’t like funnel cake?
j: i’ve never tried funnel cake.
a: That is flabbergasting. you are THE DOUGHNUT guy. You love doughnuts. You know what funnel cake is, right? It’s like doughnuts covered in powdered sugar. Only crispier. It’s like crispy powdered sugar covered heaven.
a: Although, you do have to be careful when you’re eating them, or you can inhale the powdered sugar. Not fun.
j: have you heard about what’s going on on flickr?
a: no. what’s going on on flickr?
j: they’re beta testing video now. like, 90 seconds long, you know the kind you can take with a still digital camera.
a: cool! i have a bunch of those!
j: some people do not like this. they are upset.
a: really?
j: there is an ANTI Flickr video group. On flickr.
a: ok.
j: and there’s an ANTI ANTI flickr video group.
a: Heh.
j: on flickr.
a: hee hee!
j: And now another group has started up, and it is the We Demand Doughnuts flickr group.
a: *laugh*
j: And flickr announced that anyone from the We Demand Doughnuts group that would meet at some doughnut shop at a predetermined time in san francisco…. would get doughnuts.
a: awesome.
a: i love flickr.

I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet lately. I switched hosting companies for the assortment of stuff James and I host, and then grew a bit dissatisfied with them and ended up switching hosting companies again – this time I think it’ll stick.

But that’s pretty much settled down now, so I don’t really have any excuses for not writing something. I even have a ton of stuff to write ABout that I keep saying to myself, “Gotta write that down,” or “boy this will make a good post!” But still, nothing.

I’m a bit scattered and out of it, too. Yesterday when i was driving the kids to school I was thinking about how we had to get Ethan registered at our local elementary school for next year (he is at a private kindergarten now) and instead of going straight, I turned left as if I was going to the elementary school. And then when I was closer to our kids’ school, I took a right a block too early. I am just off in la la land, I swear.

My brain is deciding to do things for me too, which is weird, but a bit of a relief. I’ve always noticed this, and you probably have too. You’re sitting and doing something and you know you need to get up and do something else, but just haven’t yet when suddenly your brain just throws your body into motion and you’re up and doing what you need to go do. Now, obviously, your brain is the one that makes your body do everything ALL the time, so this explanation probably makes not much sense.. but it’s more like your subconscience had a timer that finally went off and says, “OK, no more lolly-gagging reading blogs on the couch, time to go clean the kitchen NOW!” and before you know it you’re up and moving even though you were in mid-post of dooce’s latest dog exploits. Oh fine, subconscience go team up with the brain and the body and just leave me, your conscience mind out of it! See if I care!

So, a few very short and totally disconnected from anything else thoughts rolling around in my head that I must now share:

– I love singing and dancing. The old Drew Carey show? Loved it. Why? It was funny, yes, but mostly because they would randomly sing and dance. Gotta love the singing and the dancing.

– Which is why I have saved forever on my Tivo, the Scrubs rerun where there’s a patient who hears everything in song, so the entire episode is like a musical. Awesome!

– which also leads to me hearing that Penn (from penn & teller) is dancing on dancing with the stars and setting the tivo to catch it – Um, HELLO!?? dancing!?! WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN WATCHING THIS SHOW FOREVER? I LOVE IT! Now if they would only start singing while they dance.

– As you know I am in a choir. And we have a concert coming up in May. I am now giving everyone that personally knows me warning to think up their excuses now, because I have actually been given TICKETS and am charged to like, SELL them and stuff. So I will probably be bugging you in a future near you. (They’re only $5 a piece and anyone under 18 is free, so seriously, you should come. We’re singing lots of jazz, and i have several solos. Several? I think several. I need to check that. And I don’t mean just you, people I know, you, I also mean YOU, people I DON’T know, you, if you’re in the northern va area, that is.)

Wow. They were very connected, in fact. Huh.

So yeah. Weird stuff going on over here in amy head land. Hopefully my subconscience will throw my body into action and I’ll write up some actual POSTS sometime soon. That would be nice. Yes. Let’s do that. Subconscience, get right on that, will you??

I’ll see you there!

james: I have a CRAZY idea! How about mac and cheese for lunch?
jocelyn: YES! I like that idea!
ethan: Daddy, that is NOT a crazy idea. Do you want to hear my idea?
james: let’s hear it!
ethan: YES!

That’s it. His idea was “yes!”

james: Excuse me Jocelyn.
jocelyn: I am not a Jocelyn. I am a DOOR.
james: Oh, I see.
*opens jocelyn like a door*

Sorry for the silence. This is all I’ve got.

FOR NOW!

Just go see it yourself. Safe for work, will only take 40 seconds. CLICK!

These are the new digs. Yay! You made it!

I’m switching the site over to a new host.. and I am thinking it may disturb the feed. If this is the last post you see for a few days, you may want to go to http://www.crazymokes.com/ and resubscribe to the feed — be sure to refresh to make sure you’re at the new digs!

I of course took the opportunity to install a new theme, because I am nothing if not fickle. So if the side bar is on the RIGHT – OLD host. If the side bar is on the LEFT… congrats, you’re at the new digs 🙂

Just in case I mislead you with the previous post, I took the day off entirely and me and the kids had a nice day. It’s nice when you don’t have to try to work at the same time. I got some housework done, we played on the Wii, we baked cookies, movies were watched.. fun was had by all. I wasn’t REALLY misleading you – it was a classic mistake! But I didn’t mind, and staying home wasn’t the “chore” I made it out to be. I wouldn’t have let Ethan stay home, otherwise. I was playing it up bloggy style because hey, that makes for a more interesting post! Anyway, we had fun!

Which really came home to me tonight at dinner, when out of the blue, Jocelyn said, “Mommy, I had fun with you yesterday.”

Doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been interupted for the 27th time while trying to communicate with your spouse and can’t get it out because of all the

“Mommy! MOMMY!!”
“what??”
“I want some more!”
“I’m done with my dinner now!”
“My bowl is in the sink now!”
“I’m leaving the room now!”

and that’s just the dinner related interuptions, we haven’t even touched the surface on school related, toy related, tv related, clothes related, fart related, butt related, doughnut related, wiener related and of course fart and butt related some more, because there’s a lot of fart and butt talk in our house lately.

So when she interupted me AGAIN:

“So I was trying to call him back when–”
“Mommy. MOMMY!”
“YES?!!”
“I had fun with you yesterday.”

It makes me realize that all the interuptions are a plea for attention, it makes me remember how these precious little souls just want to connect with me, and have me look at them, right into their eyes, have me smile at them and talk to them, and it makes me overjoyed that I blew off work and didn’t bother trying to work from home to spend a special hooky day with my kids, just cutting out paper dolls, baking cookies, watching movies, playing video games, reading books and being there.

So I stopped trying to finish my conversation with james (let’s face it, finishing that was like hoping an icecube won’t melt in hell what with all the poop-fart-butt interuptions) and asked her what her favorite part of yesterday was. It was baking cookies. Ethan’s was playing on the Wii and cleaning up.

Now to not make another classic mommy mistake — forgetting all this and getting all irritated all the time from all the interuptions and not recognizing the not so subtle pleas for attention.

-amy

I went into the kids room yesterday to get them up and ready for school. Ethan was awake and fiddling around in his bed and Jocelyn was still fast asleep. Her nose was stuffed up with dried boogers and her face was flushed and hot. In short, she didn’t look good.

I sat down next to her and she barely fluttered her eyes. I felt her head = hot.

“Good morning sweetie, how’re you doing?”

“Not good.”

“Tired?”

“Yes.”

— Notice right here, I start off with leading queries. Never, under ANY circumstance, ask if a child under 18 is tired, when it’s time to get them up and ready for school.

“You don’t look so good, are you feeling sick?”

— GAH! HAVE I LEARNED NOTHING IN ALL MY YEARS OF MOTHERING?

“Yes. I feel SICK.”

I make her sit up and try in vain to peer into her throat. I probe her neck and feel palpable engorged pea-sized glands.

I go and talk to James. I tell her that she is flushed with fever and looks like death. She’d better stay home.

I go back to the room and inform her that in my professional mother opinion, she should stay home from school today. And since Ethan is on spring break (no school, daycare only) and informed us yesterday upon arriving home that he was “totally bored,” I thought I’d let him stay home too.

30 minutes later, they are both running around like maniacs, Jocelyn looks totally normal (nothing that 10 minutes AWAKE and a good face washing didn’t cure) and I am banging my head against the wall.

I took her to the doctor anyway, but she confirmed that it was viral and nothing to worry about.

You would think I was a ROOKIE! NEVER diagnose a child when they just wake up and are known grumpy wakers! NEVER lead the child down the “you look sick, are you sick?” line of questioning! AT LEAST wait 20 minutes to see if they’re still pissing and moaning and to see if the fever sticks, and most importantly.. never… NEVER mention the “stay at home” phrase until you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that they need to stay at home, because once that one is out, THERE’S NO TAKING IT BACK.

Rookie mistake. I am ashamed.

I am officially throwing in the towel on Photo 366. (Sorry Anna! Sorry Tamara!) I am just not cut out for getting those suckers up every day. Oh well.

We are busy. Making PLANS! For someone’s BIRTHDAY!

Imagine this folded into thirds.

You didn’t think I left the boys out, did you?

I found these (AND OTHERS!) darling paper dolls on the invitation at Teri’s Paper Doll Scans page.

So cute. SO CUTE!!

We’re going to be busy the rest of this weekend, and the week, for that matter.

But we got the important things out of the way. Jocelyn has a new “party dress”!

Which I’m sure you will see soon enough 🙂

-amy