Second Graders, Frosting Bags and (Avoiding) Walmart December 18, 2008

Its been more than a week, and I have survived 11 second graders making gingerbread houses, secret santa and a Mario Kart Wii shortage everywhere except for Walmart (which in case you’ve forgotten, I HATE…Walmart, not Mario Kart or Wii).

First, Saturday evening after Jack’s friend birthday party, I called my BFF and told her to remind me next year when I think it is a good idea to have a party with children at my house because it will be fun and cheaper than going someplace else. I told her to remind me that $100 is NOT too much to spend, that it is worth every single penny and that to interrupt me if I every start to talk about becoming an elementary school teacher. Since she already upholds this philosophy, it won’t be difficult for her to remind me. THANK GOD!

The kids weren’t that bad aside from all the wrestling, but 11 kids for two hours takes a lot out of you, particularly when you give them frosting bags with tips. Stupidly, I forgot that just because Jack has used a frosting bag and tip and knows that you MUST twist and hold from the top, it doesn’t mean that any other 8 year old know this technique. Thankfully, all the kids were able to make it to the sink before the frosting overflowed onto the floor.

These kids were genuinely fun, just maybe not ALL at one time while they are hopped up on candy and frosting.

Jack chose a chocolate chip cookie bar tower for his cake which saved me a lot of time and energy.

I chose to take part in Secret Santa at work because Secret Santa is fun. I like finding the right gift for my giftee. This year I’ve experienced two problems. The first is completely selfish and indulgent. I got what I asked for: mechanical pencils and Nutella. I was thinking those little packets the size of peanut butter packets at Perkins (say that 5 times fast) , but I got a regular 13 oz jar of Nutella.

Me+13 oz Nutella+a fork=6 oz of Nutella

Of course, I keep forks in a baggie in my desk drawer for my lunches. Of course, the Nutella jar was taunting me sitting there between my monitor and my keyboard.  And, of course, one of my favorite things EVER is being the first person to dig into a smooth, silky mess of peanut butter or NUTELLA! Aaron once got into a little pickle because he dug into the peanut butter without offering me the opportunity, but this is not about issues that I discuss with my therapist…

The second Secret Santa problem is this…my giftee’s wish list included a .5mm z4 Bic pen, movies and Scrabble. I thought the pen should be no problem, but I was wrong. A movie ticket could not be accommodated in the $10 Secret Santa budget, so I opted for specialty popcorn from a store nearby. Scrabble was a toughie…I was hoping to find some word-ie type of fabric to sew up into something fun. Unfortunately, I could find nothing word-ie that was not babyish as well. I found fabric with dominos, bingo and crossword puzzles, but not a single Scrabble related theme.

My next thought in Jo-Ann’s was buttons! Make something and sew on buttons that would fit the theme. Nothing. Ribbon is next to the buttons. Nothing. Scrapbooking supplies surely would have something suitable. Nothing…until I found these capital letter stickers that were BROWN and SQUARE. I found a pack of 8 blank greeting cards and two pieces of fun scrapbooking paper. With my 50% off coupon for the greeting card pack, my total purchase with tax was only $4.83. What a bargain!

I was counting on Aaron for help since he is typically far more creative than I am when it comes to paper items…remind me to post about some of his handmade Christmas cards to frat buddies. I needed him to make something that could resemble a Scrabble tile rack. Just as I suspected, Aaron came up with a pop-up three dimensional tile rack, but it wouldn’t quite work given the time constraints (about 60 minutes for 8 cards). While he cut paper, I dug out Scrabble and added numbers with black ink to all the tile stickers. The previous night, I searched for good 8 letter words (7 tiles PLUS the tile on the board). So, this morning, my recipient got a pack of greeting cards with a Scrabble theme.

Secret Santa left this in the mail room…

I’ll be looking for a used Scrabble game on craigslist.com because Santa’s final gift is this…

As it turns out, Santa has completed his shopping for the boys in our house, but mom and dad have not. I have had a serious lack of inspiration for Jack’s xmas gift after getting him the BEST birthday present ever – a new snowboarding sled and a helmet. Both of these boys have their birthdays in Nov. and Dec. so that makes it that much more difficult. I did get an inspiration the other day with Mario Kart Wii only to find out that no store in all of Des Moines had the game. I went online and everyplace was out – Target.com, Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com. Ebay was asking too much. The one place it was available was Walmart.com. I searched for another hour online…craigslist, facebook, etc.

For one hour I asked myself again and again if my boycott of Walmart should “ruin” Christmas. Then I thought, good god, I volunteer with the Cub Scouts despite my well documented distate for discrimination against gays. What more do I have to do? I succumbed to the motherly urge to not ruin Christmas only to find that my hour saved me and ruined Christmas – Walmart.com was sold out.

This morning, I searched some more and my last search (before Walmart) was proved fruitful! Bestbuy.com had it in stock, but you can never be sure at Bestbuy.com because sometimes items look like they are in stock only to have the out of stock show up at checkout. It looks like I saved Christmas AND avoided Walmart! Yippee!

Here is a picture of one of Jack’s gingerbread houses from school…he cleverly made a door that opens and put a waving gingerbread boy inside. In this picture, it looks like ET. I think he sorta looks like ET in person too.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake December 7, 2008

We celebrated Jack’s family birthday party yesterday. Jack selected the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake recipe that I found on the Annie’s Eats blog. Annie’s got lots of great recipes over there, but more about that later.

This was a very good cake, but the cake itself turned out a bit too dry I think because it took a lot longer to cook than the recipe indicated. The taste was very good though and the frosting was just the perfect amount of peanut butter flavor. This was definately a great cake in terms of presentation! Here is Jack with our version.

Aaron and I got Jack a new snowboard for sledding and a snowboard helmet. Him and Troy have been glued to the new Spiderman: Friend or Foe game for Wii. After he goes to bed tonight, I may be able to try out some of the old games like Dig Dug on Namco Museum Remix for Wii. His actual birthday is tomorrow, so we’ll go out to eat at his choice of restaurant.

We had another birthday party today along with Cub Scouts. Tuesday we have Cub Scouts and Troy’s band concert. And, we have to prepare for Jack’s friend birthday party on Saturday. Ugh. My step-mom is going to come down if the weather holds to help out with the 11 kids thank god! We are going to be very busy. Good thing I’m nearly done Christmas shopping.

Back to Annie’s Eats…I’ve found a lot of great recipes on her blog. I also make the white chicken chili from her this week as well which was absolutely delicious. I’m not a great fan of chili, but I will definately be making this again.

Cold Showers Before Bathtubs were invented December 4, 2008

Context for the conversation between me and Jack this morning:

Jack likes to take his sweet old time in the shower. This morning, I feared he’d run out of warm water since Aaron and I both had taken showers, so I told him to get a move on it. I asked him if he ever had taken a cold shower, and he said no. I said that he didn’t want to find out what it was like this morning.

Jack: How old were you when you had to take a cold shower?

Mom: I’ve taken many cold showers through my whole life.

*Silence as Jack thinks this through.*

Jack: Mom, did you have to take cold showers because bathtubs weren’t invented? Like did you have to wash in a bucket?

Mom: NO! Are you serious?

Jack: Well…yes. I mean you aren’t grandma old, but you are old.

Mom: I am huh?

When my parents were in their twenties and thirties, I always thought of them as young. Maybe it was in their mid-thirties that my idea of “young”  changed. I guess it is only downhill from here.

I must have been overly distracted by this conversation because both Jack and I completely forgot his breakfast this morning! I had already seered a beef roast, cut vegetables and packed two lunches by the time he woke up, but I forgot his breakfast. As we were about to go out the door, he asked if he could have a pop tart. (I keep them for Aaron.) I said, “OH my God! We forgot your breakfast!”

Bad mom, bad mom, bad mom. At least he was clean and dressed when he went to school!

Better things to do with my time December 3, 2008

My 20 minute drive to work today took 60 minutes! My fingernails are gone as a result. I HATE traffic, I HATE people thinking that 1 inch of snow is an emergency, and I HATE traffic. Oh, I guess I already said that. Normally, I take the bus, but on Wednesdays I drive for an early meeting I need to get to. I would have arrived sooner on the bus because it takes the side streets, not the major thoroughfares and bypasses which were crawling today.

Had a very good chili today…it was made regular but a jar of salsa was added. I haven’t liked chili for years, but this was very good!

Aaron and I finished watching the movie Black Book last night. It was very good. It is about a Jewish woman who works for the resistance in the Netherlands during WWII. This movie starred Sebastian Koch who was in another good movie we watched recently called The Lives of Others. The Lives of Others is about 1980s Berlin and the German Stazi police. It was very good as well.

Not much to report today.

Kettles, Carbon, Cocoa and Parties December 1, 2008

Well, tonight I attended an informational meeting on our soccer club’s board of director’s opportunities. There are plenty of opportunities there, but also a lot of good work that needs to get done so the soccer club can flourish and grow. As Jack appears to be turning into a gifted soccer player, it may be a good way to give back since I certainly canNOT coach and mowing lawns is not one of my favorite activities.

I’ll be ringing a Salvation Army bell this year with Jack, and Troy if he is here the weekend we ring. I first did this many years ago with my friend Peggy in Rochester. We froze our asses off because it was below zero if I remember correctly, but we had one person drop a $20 bill in the bucket! It was very exciting. Anyone can sign up online to spend two hours for a good cause!  Even if you get cold, you feel GREAT!

I’ve been seriously considering NOT sending xmas cards this year because of the carbon footprint and waste involved. The $80 or so dollars I would normally spend on the cards and postage could be dropped into a red kettle along with taking Jack and Troy shopping for Toys for Tots. I may make an email card which I know is considered tacky and sending cards to those I don’t have email addresses for. Tacky and give to good causes or not tacky and wasteful???

Since taking a job here in Des Moines, I have reduced my carbon footprint by 90 miles x 4 days x 50 weeks!!! Now, my carbon footprint for work is 4 miles x 5 days x 50 weeks PLUS 20 miles x 5 days x 50 weeks on MASS TRANSIT! Merry Christmas Earth!

I’d like to follow up on my last post about the new pie recipes. The chocolate pecan pie was NOT better than traditional pecan pie. It was not bad, but it wasn’t better. What is more is that I always forget that baking cocoa is a killer on the caffeine (i.e. my dessert kept me up until 2:30 am Friday morning which caused me to actually consider getting dressed and going out to the mall which had opened at midnight). The apple cream pie recipe was GREAT! I cut the cream in half and upped the sliced apples to about 6 cups and it was absolutely perfect.

My mom is coming this weekend to celebrate Jack’s birthday. I remembered tonight while cooking dinner that my mom loves the Christmas task I dislike – physically setting up the Christmas tree and flaring out all the branches. I love decorating it, but detest the boring details involved in the setting up process. I am so lucky!

Normally, we wait until after Jack’s birthday party to set up the tree (his friend party is Sat. the 13th) to keep his birthday his own, but he decided this year to set the tree up before his friend party because of his birthday party theme…I will be helping ELEVEN 2nd graders build gingerbread houses from graham crackers in two hours. UGH!!! I really should have asked my mom to come for that because I am going to need a lot of help. Jack wants two things for his party – building gingerbread houses and bobbing for apples OH and he earned enough points to invite ONE friend for a sleepover that night. OH and he also thinks having a drawing dragon contest is a good idea. When I told him that all his friends may not like drawing and focusing on the competition is probably not a good idea, he thought I wasn’t quite in tune with his friends and their drawing as I should be.

Did you read the part when I said ELEVEN 2nd graders – I usually have more than I can handle with my ONE second grader. What was I thinking? I was thinking that Jack turning 8 means inviting 8 friends which means having 9 second graders at one time over. That was overwhelming enough, but at least between two tables and a counter, I could physically position them all. Well, paring down the list from 10 to 8 proved so difficult that I caved, and we are inviting 10 kids over. Imagine frosting, candy and graham crackers EVERYWHERE! UGH!

Sometimes I am a good mom!