On Friday night, while The Baby Toddler Cousins went to see “Finding Nemo on Ice” (because every story is better told on ice, right?) with Uncle Ray and Aunt Betsy, I took J, E and their cousins M (age 7) and E (age 11) to the Fellini Kroger with me to do some catch-up grocery shopping.

While at the store, and against my better judgment, I allowed myself to be wheedled by all 4 children into buying a “Make Your Own Gingerbread House” kit for $6.99. The box promised that it was so simple that even a very young child could complete the project without assistance. It was the “without assistance” part that sealed the deal, because in addition to hating baking and crafts of all kinds (although this kit did not require any actual baking; the pieces of the house supposedly came ready to assemble), my idea of torture would be working on a craft project involving jujubees that I would not be allowed to consume. The combination of crafting and delayed gratification would be a disaster waiting to happen for me.

But I digress.

Again, against my better judgment, I shelled out the $$ for the gingerbread house kit, and the five of us headed the 3 blocks back to our house, where the kids excitedly showed the colorful box containing their kit to Jon, who looked up from the book he was reading long enough to bemusedly mutter, “Bad, bad idea,” before going right back to reading. He’s low key that way (and as it turns out, usually right).

Oh no, I assured him, with the kids nodding their heads in enthusiastic assent. This is a VERY easy gingerbread house kit! It says so, right on the box!

I halfheartedly offered to help the children with their project, and was not so secretly glad when they said they could do it all by themselves, and that they wanted to. So I helped them find a few supplies they needed (actually, we had to interrupt Jon to find some of the supplies, as I was unsure whether we had something the instructions referred to as an “electric beater.”) Once the kids were set to go, I went and took a hot bath for nearly 40 minutes whilst reading the latest Star Magazine. As I caught up on the latest hijinks from those wacky Kardashian sisters, I assumed that the kids were busily at work on their SUPEREASY gingerbread masterpiece. I imagined how cute the finished product would look on our mantel during the holiday season just ahead.

However, I don’t think I will be displaying their handiwork on the mantel…or anywhere else for that matter. But I thought I would let y’all take a gander at what the kids produced with this “so easy that a drunk chimpanzee could build it” gingerbread house kit.

Yes, this was the result, and the children had already decamped to the upstairs, leaving their deconstructed “gingerbread house ” – and all of the mess they had made – behind on the dining room table. They assumed, somewhat bizarrely, that I would clean it all up for them. They were wrong.

But it goes without saying that I certainly DID go ahead and eat all of the jujubees. After all, I didn’t want them to go to waste.

Me: Wow, is that some of the delicious cheese from Sam’s Club over at East Towne Mall?!

Dr. Neighbor: I prefer to say that it’s “from Vermont.”

My summerlong quest for the perfect margarita has come to an end just as the season wraps up. After trying various options – restaurants, bars, my own concoctions – I can now report with confidence that the best margaritas in Knoxville, TN are the work of one Dr. Jay Pfaffman. Apparently, it’s all about key lime and triple sec.

Now, what should my Fall quest be?

I posted this on my Facebook page the other day:

Sometimes, when it’s 5:10 pm and raining outside, and I haven’t yet left work to go home and feed hungry people, I say a little silent prayer of thanks for whomever it was who invented the glorious frozen pizza and its trusty sidekick, the pre-washed, bagged salad. Thank you, Mr. Frozen Pizza Inventor Guy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

But then, one of my friends commented to let me know that the inventor of the frozen pizza wasn’t a guy at all, the inventor was Rose Totino, who dropped out of school at the age of 16 to clean houses, became a wife and mother, ran an Italian restaurant with her husband, and eventually became the first-ever female VP of Pillsbury.

Of course, frozen pizza was invented by a working mama. Of course it was! I should have known.

….tada!!!!

(If you haven’t heard about Wacky Wednesday, more can be found HERE.)

Every Wednesday night, my sister in law and brother plan a “special” meal for their four children. Here are a few Wacky Wednesday creations from recent weeks.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

E was gifted with a bag of disgusting, sugary cereal this week – the kind we almost never have in our house, and this morning he deigned to share with his baby sister.

Notice how Leo (dog) keeps sniffing around, hoping one of them will drop some of the cereal on the floor…

I am busy. I don’t have time to drive all over town for a simple bottle of wine to enjoy with supper, you know?

In the past several days, C. has discovered something the rest of the world already knew: chocolate goes very nicely with the bottles of milk she enjoys as a regular part of her one-year-old diet.

We rarely keep chocolate around the house, but the holiday season is a different matter. The house is brimming with it – homemade candy and Hershey’s kisses and cookies….the stuff is everywhere. Until now, C had never seemed that interested in the occasional tiny taste of chocolate she’s gotten from Jon or me or one of her siblings, but a couple of days ago, she had one of those “aha” moments, and she is now fairly obsessed with the stuff. She follows people around the house begging for chocolate.

“A bite? A bite? A bite?” she asks over and over and over in a plaintive little voice, until someone capitulates and feeds her some chocolate. She has also figured out that Hershey’s kisses come in shiny foil wrappers, and at least twice this weekend I caught her trying to quicky chew and swallow some discarded candy wrappers she found. She clearly held the the vain hope that the trash might taste like the chocolate she now craves, and she threw a screaming fit when I dug the crinkly, metallic wrappers out of her wee mouth.

She has also started refusing other food because it isn’t chocolate. She will take one bite of whatever I offer, at which point she realizes it’s green beans or eggs or cheese instead of chocolate, and then she spits it out and looks disgusted before beginning to beg for “a bite?”

I think we may have to completely hide the chocolate, and wean her cold turkey. She doesn’t seem to be able to handle it in moderation.

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