FOOD ON THE FOOD

In Which I Mistake My Son’s Birthday Party for a Bender

   

If you think I made this cake, than you’re drunker than I ended up being at the Preschooler’s 5th birthday party. 

Nope, this R2-D2 cake was all Husband’s doing.  In fact, he was responsible for planning the entire Star Wars-themed event.  I am in no way robot-oriented, and I think I’ve mentioned before how I feel about making homemade birthday cakes.  All I did was line the pans with parchment paper to increase his odds of success.  Came out pretty good, huh?

But, back to my misbehavior. 

First, let me start out by saying that I’m not a huge drinker.  I may talk a big game because I love my tequila, among other things, but I’m not generally indulging in large quantities of the stuff.  This is mostly because I’ve found that if Life sees you too happy, Life will spend the next week and a half getting you back.

This morning, the sky dumped a whole bunch more snow on top of us and threatened to break a small boy’s heart.  Global warming, you are a fickle friend, indeed.  If not for some neighbors with a sled and a few die-hard friends who were willing to risk their lives on the roads for a little cake and ice cream, it would have been quite a different sort of day.

Husband was busy frosting the cake in the hour before the party, so I went outside to shovel a path to our house, starting with our 4 million stairs.  At some point during this process, the snow changed to sleet, so I got to the bottom just in time to start from the top again with the heavy stuff.  Then, I frantically shoveled out what I thought would be parking spots for two cars.  Nope, just one and a half cars.  That rounds down to one car, in case you were wondering.  So, our friend Ed and I tried shoveling out a different snow bank for another half a car (rounding down to zero cars) and on and on.

I don’t usually start drinking at 11:30 in the morning, but, you know, it just seemed like a good time.  Turns out bourbon goes down smoother than expected when you’ve had nary a cool, refreshing drink of water after your exertions.  Here are the bits and pieces I remember from the party:

• The kids beating the crap out of each other with inflatable light sabers.  And me laughing.

• The kids enjoying their pizza with Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing playing noticeably in the background (the kids didn’t bat an eye; meanwhile, all the adults were giggling like sixth graders).

• As the cake was finally unveiled, me screaming at Husband, “Stop trying to show me up on my own blog,” and storming out in a jealous rage.  (Did that even happen?  Maybe I just dreamt that when I was passed out after the party.)

Anyway, it all kind of reminded me of that 30 Rock party scene (the one where Tina Fey’s character vomits on somebody and immediately stuffs another cupcake into her mouth).  Except that I was the only one who was drunk, and most of the other guests were under 5. 

I don’t know what the Preschooler thought about how this party compared to the others in his short life, but as far as I’m concerned, it was the best one EVER.

Talking to Your Kids About Strangers

The other day, our preschooler asked us what a stranger was.  We immediately felt like failures as parents.  Even the handbook for slacker moms suggests an intensive seminar on stranger identification by age 11.5 months.  How behind are we?  Should we do the drug speech while we’re at it?  The birds and the bees?

We hadn’t lectured him about strangers, yet, because someone we trust is with him every second of the day.  He’s shy and won’t even talk to family or friends half the time, never mind people he doesn’t know.  I have enough trouble trying to get the younger one into the car, I didn’t want to complicate matters. 

But, the subject came up at preschool and, I’ll admit it, sometimes I take my cues from the professionals.  Looking back, I should have run a rough draft by them first.  Here’s how it went:

Him: What’s a stranger?

Me: A stranger is somebody you don’t know.

Husband: And you should never, ever talk to strangers.  Even if they give you candy.

Him: They have candy?

Me: Gross, yucky candy.  That tastes bad and makes you sick.

Him: Oh.  Why do they have yucky candy?

Husband: Because they want you to get into their car.  But never, ever get into a stranger’s car.

Him: Why?  Do they crash them?

Me: Yes. 

Him: (…)

Me: And they’re full of spiders.

Him: (…!)

Me: Then they explode.

Him: (!!!!!)

Bugs.  Car crashes.  Explosions.  Candy.  Clearly, we have some work to do so that abduction doesn’t sound like the best overnight camp ever.

Ask the Pseudo-Chef: Post-Holiday Gingerbread Question

What is the proper way to dispose of a gingerbread house? --Ed, MA

I’m so glad you asked.  According to my husband, the proper way to discard a gingerbread house, which his son lovingly crafted by hand out of graham crackers and the frosting that he didn’t eat, would be to “whip it” into the bushes from the back door.  Drop-kicking it might work, too, but the point is that it should be airborne for as long as possible, and mostly still intact upon landing in the shrubbery.  If all goes well, it will end up near the sunken pumpkin carcasses from the previous Halloween.  And in plain view of the child’s bedroom so he will ask puzzled questions.



Happy New Year, little sparrows.