Good Good Whole Wheat Cupcakes

I had an I Don't Know How She Does It moment the other day. I read the book ages ago; it has been long enough that I don't remember all that much about it other than it was a very funny story about a working woman trying to be an ubermom.

Someone recently mentioned the scene from the book where the mom has to bring something to a school bake sale and, because she has more pride than time, she buys the goodies and then "distresses" them to make them look homemade. (You can read that excerpt here.)

One day this week I was asked to bring cupcakes for Boychild's class. I love to bake and I do a pretty good job of it, but it never for a moment occurred to me that I would make 24 wholesome cupcakes from scratch for this particular event. Instead, I headed straight for the cake mix section and got rainbow chip with matching icing (yum!), nifty celebratory muffin cups and some animal sprinkles for added sugar. They looked quite pretty when they were all done (thanks, Betty Crocker). At one point I giggled a little at the thought of what I could do to "distress" these cupcakes (would taking a nibble out of some of them count?), but decided not to disguise my store-bought creations. What would be the point? We're talking five- and six-year-olds here. They're usually not looking for "fancy" or demand that their cupcakes contain wheat germ.

The Big Day dawned bright with...sheets of ice, gale-force winds and blowing snow. It was a snow day, but the schools were open for brave or idiotic souls who chose to navigate the icy streets and biting cold wind. Usually we walk to school, but because I didn't think the muffins would survive a trip stashed in the bottom of Girlchild's stroller I had arranged to snag the van from Groom-boy and drive to school that morning - and that was before I knew the weather report.

That's when BFF called. Would I like her to pick up Boychild and take him to school on her way to work? We've done this before and it's sure nice to avoid the drama of stuffing a not-always-compliant two-year-old girl into a snowsuit first thing in the morning to "help" walk her brother to school.

I almost said yes. Then I remembered the cupcakes. How could I hand over my pretty little cakes to another mom to carry proudly into the Kindergarten room? Egad! Everyone might think SHE had baked those lovelies!

Instead, because Groom-boy ended up being home sick anyway and I wouldn't have to cart Girlchild along in the storm, I opted to pick up BFF's little guy and brave the wild weather to hand deliver my yummy little cupcakes. Another defining moment in motherhood - check.

Just Call Me "Shifty"

Back about a million years ago I got into an, ahem, argument with a school chum. It dissolved into a cat fight - I mean - a lively discussion about various personal attributes. Ahem. Yes. Anyhoo, at one point she accused me of being "socially inept."

You know how sometimes something someone says really sticks with you whether it is valid or not? Well, for some reason this particular comment has a way of poking at me from time to time, especially when (like most normal humans on the planet) I inadvertently make some sort of social blunder, like pick my nose in public - I mean - forget someone's name or neglect to make a proper introduction or accidentally insult someone's outerwear or whatever.

So the other night there was an open house for potential new students at Boychild's school. Boychild has been home sick all week, and I saw this as an opportunity to pop over and grab some homework and check in with his teacher. We had a nice chat about how his reading is coming along. We wandered into the hallway, where some other school-types were milling about, and continued to chat about Girlchild's Triumphant Arrival to school not this fall but next.

By this time I'm standing across from a giant display covered in photographs from Boychild's class. I'm chatting with the adults, but my eyes keep shifting over to the display. Eventually I realize how idiotic it is that I'm not making good eye contact with the people to whom I am speaking - my gaze flitting back and forth and my attention obviously diverted. Feeling flustered, I cut and run, announcing I should be heading home.

I relay this story to Groom-boy later, and he thinks I am pretty funny (funny haha or funny strange?). It is funny because, as he pointed out, all I really had to do was say, "My! What a lovely display!" and turn the conversation toward the board so I could take a look at the photos, which I never really got to examine. Instead, which of the following impressions do you think I left:

a) My, what a strange, shifty-eyed woman. Someone call security.
b) Is she about to steal something? Someone call security.
c) Do we even have security at this school?
d) Is she lying to us about the fact she has a daughter who will start school in a couple of years?
e) Boy, is she ever socially inept, just like that girl said she was 15 years ago.
f) Is this open house over yet? The visitors are getting weird.
g) Hey! I like her hat!
h) Helloooo? Over here! Hey! Lady!
i) Is there something wrong with the display?
j) Somebody check her bag.

Let's hope it was g. Sigh. Nerd.

I Love My Mommy and Daddy

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

When I first moved back home after finishing university it was akin to dragging Britney Spears off to rehab. "Don't make me go back to that boring little town!" I wailed so loud it probably still echoes through the hills.

That was almost 15 years ago (aaaaack!), and my perspective has changed dramatically. Now that I am married and have two little kids I can't really imagine being anywhere else at the moment. It's home. It's groom-boy's home. We know the place and the people. More than that, though, our families are here.

I wouldn't be able to do what I do without having our parents nearby. Mom watches the kids a couple of mornings a week so I can work from home and groom-boy's folks usually contribute another half-day. Besides all that, Boychild and Girlchild have great relationships with their grandparents, and that is important to us.

Here is a special example of why it is so nice to have family nearby. I talk to Mom almost every morning on the phone. Today I was lamenting that with Boychild home sick again (poor guy - it has been five days) Isobel and I were starting to feel a little cooped up. I was also mentioning how many other people are sharing my sentiments about having irreconcilable differences with the month of January. In fact, many conversations I have had and many blog postings I have read by other mommies tread upon this theme or on the need to unplug, get some perspective or get some counselling. It's a bit uncanny.

Anyway, after I spoke to her I glanced at the newspaper and was about to get motivated to start laundry and shovel through last night's supper dishes (yuck) when who should show up at the door unexpectedly but my Mommy!

"You take Girlchild and go out and do something for a while," she said. I protested, citing my dirty kitchen, but she insisted.

And so we did because, for a change, the sun was shining. We toddled downtown to a gift store and got some cards we needed. Then we shovelled the driveway. By the time we got back inside (about 45 minutes later), Mom had cleaned up my horrid kitchen - even though I told her not to. She's cute that way.

What a nice treat! It is something that wouldn't have happened if I lived hours away.

A little bit later I wandered over to the computer because I am currently obsessed with checking e-mail and blogs (another symptom of this January thing I think) and found a lovely message from my Dad saying he is enjoying my blog. Since I am uncontrollably vain and thrive on praise, his e-mail made me extraordinarily happy. (Read: Leave comments! I love 'em!)

These happy things combined with sunshine and fresh air (and I'm sure that extra Vitamin D tablet didn't hurt) have made the blehs subside for today. How many more days until spring?

January Woes

Sunshine. Beaches. Fields of wheat waving in a warm breeze. Flowers. Robins singing. Bees buzzing. Sitting under the blossoming apple tree.

Ahem. Sorry about that. I was just trying to concoct warm happy thoughts to put me in a better frame of mind for writing my so-called lighthearted blog. Really, though, I'm feeling just plain bleh.

It appears to be an epidemic as there are copious long faces around these here parts. For we sun-deprived more-northern types on the planet, by the time January rolls around there seems to be a plague of blehs going around, not to mention all the viral and bacterial nasties that accompany the winter season. The news heralds Jan. 21 as the most depressing day of the year. For me, the whole of January tends to be a fairly steady funk.

I think part of it is a hangover from the Christmas festivities. My freelance year-end deadlines and the end-of-semester marking I have for my courses tend to put me in overdrive in December. Throw in Christmas, New Year's and some family birthdays in early January and it makes for hectic to the power of ten. No spare time.

Then, suddenly, it's over. No holidays. No major festivities. Work slows down to manageable again. I'm no longer running like a cat with my tail on fire and, instead of rejoicing in this and living in the moment like I said I was going to do, I feel as if I should be doing "something" urgent. I feel anxious about it. It seems to take my brain a looooooong time to wind down from super-silly-crazy hectic to normal.

I think many folks are in the same boat, especially when combined with the diminished sunlight at this time of year. Maybe I have undiagnosed seasonal affective disorder. I like winter, at least I tell myself I do, but there's definitely a hermit living inside me at this time of year. Even though I promote getting outside and express joy when we have snow because we can go sledding or snowshoeing or skating or build snow things in the backyard, I don't do much of it. Bad Mommy. Take those kids out to play more! It will make everyone happy. Alas, Boychild is home sick and Girlchild still naps and that means it won't be this afternoon, so good intentions get postponed for yet another day.

And it's another cloudy day. Sigh.

Maybe I'm subconsciously susceptible to thinking I have to feel this way at this time every year. I dunno. Do you loathe January, too?

Growing Up Together

When I was six years old, my best friend who lived next door moved away. I don't remember much about being six, but I sure remember that. I was so very sad. I can still see them driving away down our street, waving to my parents and me until they were out of sight. I cried. I remember going inside and feeling empty and lonely.

Colleen was a few months older than I was and she was beautiful. She had long, straight brown hair that she wore in two braids and the prettiest skin - pale and smooth and without a blemish - that I thought was so lovely compared to my freckles. We played many games together, from the standard hide-and-seek, hopscotch and skipping to elaborate pretend games involving princesses and princes and horses that we staged with the other neighbourhood girls. We would traipse around our yards draped in our blanket gowns. I thought we would grow up together.

Her dad was a police officer and they were transferred so far away that we couldn't even visit. They left a few weeks before my birthday, and Mom let me open my present from Colleen early to try to cheer me up. She was my first pen pal and we wrote letters for years.

My parents are still in that house, and I lived there from the time I was three until university (and then for a couple of years after I graduated). In all of that time, there was never another family in the house next door that had kids. It changed hands a few times, and when I was growing up I always hoped for another Colleen, but it was not to be.

Why am I rambling on about this melancholy childhood memory? It's because I just found out our neighbours are moving; the lovely family next door. They have two little boys: the oldest is a year and a half younger than Boychild, who is six, and the youngest is six months younger than Girlchild, who is two. Boychild and Neighbourboy have spent hours and hours and hours playing together in our adjacent backyards and in each other's playrooms. We all kinda thought they'd be growing up together.

Our neighbours moved in about six years ago and we have watched as they toiled relentlessly on their older home to improve it and make it just the way they wanted it to be. They have done a lovely job and their pride in the house is evident. Nevertheless, plans change.

It makes us sad to lose such nice neighbours. They won't be going far, not like Colleen and her family; just a few kilometres away. Still, it's not quite walking distance. We won't be able to chat over the back fence or just wander into each other's yards for a lemonade. Perhaps I should just tell them I've been thinking it over and have decided that, sorry, they can't move. Do you think that would work?

We haven't told Boychild yet. When we do, I'm pretty sure I'll know just exactly how he feels.

An Essay on Not Writing about Belly Button Fluff

I have been writing a weekly column for the local newspaper since the mid 1990s. Regular readers will agree some weeks are better than others. Sometimes it is a struggle to come up with something witty, clever and fun for the space.

Writing the column is fairly easy once I get going. Coming up with the idea is not always so. Once I stumble upon something brilliant (er, whatever) I can usually pound out the verbiage in short order. Getting to that point, though, can take the whole week and sometimes I am staring at the computer screen with little beads of sweat forming on my crinkled brow as the clock tick tick ticks in the background and the deadline looms. The column was originally named "Past Deadline" to denote an afterthought on whatever is happening in life. Sometimes, though, my submissions have been pretty close to being literally late.

Generating ideas can be tricky business. That's why I love writing this blog. My aim is for it to be entertaining for people to read without being a journal of serious introspection on belly button fluff (although I'm sure that would appeal to someone out there - ugh). Mainly the blog is also giving me a chance to record some of the random thoughts that plop into my brain. Sometimes I can expand on these thoughts and turn them into a column.

My long-term writing goal is to someday see some novels on a shelf with my name on them (and I don't mean on the inside cover with a sticker that says "This book belongs to _____________"). This dream is on the back burner at the moment as I work on projects that actually pay the bills, at least while the kids are small and my time is pressed. (I know, I know. Having more time later is a bit of a fantasy - although when they're both in school full time I should be able to squeeze more work into my day.)

The other reason the dream is on standby comes back to ideas. I have some vague notions, but these days my head doesn't swim with fictional storylines the way it used to. I would walk to and from school (elementary, high school and university) and my brain would be alive with characters and plots. I wrote short stories all the time. I was bursting with ideas for novels.

This current subsided when all those crevices in my head were filled with other work-related thoughts, but a small fire still burns - and the embers are great for roasting marshmallows. Eventually I'll stoke that fire.

Another Unscripted Moment

Every once in a while it becomes apparent I spend too much time either talking to little people or meandering around in my head and not enough time conversing with grown-ups.

Here's a recent example. There are probably lots of other ones, but my short-term/long-term memory (okay, memory in general) is on the fritz, I think because I have too many things to remember.

This example falls into the category "Try Not to Blurt." Blurting is okay if you are a kid; not so much when you are, allegedly, a grown-up.

I was talking to a mom who lives nearby. Our boys are in the same class and we often walk to and from school together. Sometimes the kids play after school and the other day, when she was at my house, a big button fell off her coat. Groom-boy found it in the backyard and I returned it to her a few days later when we were picking up the boys. She was telling me about how she's had to sew several buttons onto this particular coat because they keep popping off.

I sez, and here you will see why I am a professional communicator, "Yeah, I had a coat that did that all the time, too. Of course I was a student and I didn't pay much for it."

Read: "That's one cheap coat you've got there, ma'am."

I totally did not mean to suggest the coat was crummy. It's a spiffy coat! Sigh. She was gracious. I was oblivious. We continued chatting as we started the trek home with the boys. I didn't really think about what I had said until later that night when, for whatever reason, I was remembering our conversation. Oh. My. Gawd.

It's probably a good thing I am not in the diplomatic corps.

So when I saw her today and pointed out my blurt, she laughed and claimed she hadn't noticed it. She's very sweet. I'm very idiotic.

I think certain social skills with adults are rusty due to the fact I am being held prisoner in my own home - I mean - since I am a work-from-home-mom. I also think part of my trouble is I am a writer, not an orator. As such, I usually have the opportunity to consider my words. I'd probably fare better if life were scripted - or would I? Perhaps I'd spend less time with my foot in my mouth, but then what would I blog about?