Busy! Busy! Busy!

This Spring is keeping my household running wide open. Birthday parties, graduations, adoption meetings, best friends moving away. My mind and body are overworked and overwhelmed. I have cakes to make, presents to buy and emotions to deal with. But who has the time? I feel like I am devoting a little bit of me (and my time) to each event when I really want to put my whole heart into all that's going on. I want to be overwhelmed with joy for my sister who is graduating from college, but all I can focus on is making sure everything is prepared for her graduation party. I want to take the time to overly prepare a heartfelt presentation for an adoption meeting that I will be hosting, but who knows if anyone will come. Why spend so much time getting ready when no one has signed up to be there. I want to feel the emotion of my best friend moving, but my mind is so crazy that its not really registered (which is probably a good thing). I just need to remind myself to step back, take a breath and enjoy the chaos of life.

How to Make a Dino Cake

Birthday parties are a big deal to me. As I waited to become a mother I always dreamed about the cool birthday parties my kids would have. Now that I have a child and a few parties under my belt, you would think that I would have learned the lesson that birthday parties are tiring. Take any short cuts you can to make it easier on yourself because the kid don't care. However lesson not learned and I decided to make Jordi's cake again this year (with major help from my girls - thanks Amy and NeeNee).

How to Make a Dino Cake

The first step is to ask a loyal cousin (Amy) to actually bake the cake for you. Thus everything will be ready to decorate when you get time. You may also want to ask if you can use her kitchen and a lot of her baking supplies. (Her kitchen is so much bigger and more conducive to a project of this magnitude).



Since the cakes were baked we were ready to go ahead and start making the icing which calls for powdered sugar, Crisco, milk, lemon juice, butter extract and clear vanilla.



Icing can be a bit hard to mix, so you need a trusty mixer to do the job. Sadly Amy's mixer did not survive the challenge. One beater bent and we had to mix the icing with the other solo beater. May her Sunbeam mixer rest in peace. It had a good run.



Once the icing was mixed we colored it dino green and started layering the cakes. Then we, as in Amy, added a crumb coat. I hate doing the crumb coat, so luckily Amy let me pawn it off on her.





Then Amy, NeeNee and I all jumped in to decorate the cake. It was getting hot in the kitchen, so the icing was starting to melt. Big ups to NeeNee for the excellent job making dino tracks.



I am pleased to report that the cake made it safely to the party, and Jordi loved it. Thanks to Amy and NeeNee for making my big ideas happen.

Soccer Star

Someone charge me with abuse, I signed my son up for soccer. What kind of horrible parent am I? I wanted to him to have fun and make friends. What was I thinking?

Jordi played soccer last year and it did not go so well. But I thought after a year to grow and mature he would be ready to play again. He can play. Just not with the other kids. He plays great during half time when no one is on the field except him, but he refuses to go out on the field with the other kids. When the coach asks him to play he replies "I'm busy." Busy doing what you might ask. Climbing the bleachers, looking for worms, anything to avoid soccer. Thank goodness that another soccer mom was there to inform that Jordi had not improved since last year. Really, I didn't know that. I have seen some improvement. He has went from laying on the grass to climbing the bleachers. Who knows? By the end of the season he may be actually on the field. I don't care if he plays (or at least I tell myself that) I just want him to interact with the other kids. We will see what tomorrow brings.

The Week in Review

For a short week, it has been a long week.

Weekly Weight In - No weigh in this week due to being at the beach. And when I am at the beach I don't count points and I eat what I want. Now I am trying to make up for all the "bad" food that I put in my body over the weekend. How can food that is so good, be so bad?

The big thing this week is trying to get Jordi to sleep in his own bed. I think I am more sad about this than he is. It is a big adjustment, especially since he has always slept in the bed with us. He made it two hours last night, and I was happy to hear the sound of his foot steps coming into my room. I know that it is for the best, but I really miss him. My baby is growing up (tears and weeping).

Crying and Yelling at WalMart

Against my better judgment my family took a trip to WalMart last night. I avoid Walmart if at all possible. It's big and it's filled with stuff Jordi thinks he must have. But we needed a few things that only Walmart could provide, so we made our journey into the big, black money sucking hole.

We walk in the door. Jordi starts running. I start running after Jordi. Like most parents, I don't want my child running wild in the store for fear of him getting "snatched." I have had this talk with my son over and over. I have even tried scare tactics, "Jordi, if you run off from mommy, some person will "snatch" you. And once they "snatch" you they will cover you in bees, and the bees will sting you." Not a crowing moment of mothering, but I really wanted him to stop running off, and at the time he had a big fear of bees.

The goal was to pick up a few items and keep clear of the toy aisle. Jordi thinks that every time we go somewhere he needs a prize, so I did not want to risk the battle of the toy department. My plan failed, and Jordi's child radar drew us to the dreaded toys. Bring on the melt down.

"Jordi you are NOT getting a toy. It is too close to your birthday." The battle begins. It starts with Jordi just ignoring us. As we try to make it register that he is not getting a toy, he gets more excited. "I need it." Really, you need it. You need a shark race track. How have you lived without it for so long? Tears start to fall. Anger starts to boil. Jordi really thinks he needs it.

As my husband tries to drag Jordi out of the toy aisle, my son starts screaming "Daddy, you're breaking my arm." All the "perfect" parents and their "perfect" children start to stare. Jordi breaks loose and runs back to the shark race track. He really, really needs it. The drama continues and continues and continues.

Bad parenting alert! Bad parenting alert! We gave up. Jordi used his money to buy the darn race track. We all just wanted to go home. I think we all might have shed a tear at some point during our WalMart trip. However this was not a happy ending. The battle started all over again when I tried to make Jordi stop playing with the race track and go to bed.