Domestic Diva: Strike Three and You're Out

Tomorrow is C's preschool holiday party and I am in charge of "treats," which is a pretty broad term in my book. I much prefered the Thanksgiving party as I was in charge of "four apples, sliced in eighths and one bunch of grapes, sliced lengthwise." Nice and precise, no questions or concerns about what was expected of me. "Treats" on the other hand, could mean any number of things. Cupcakes (but maybe those are reserved for birthday celebrations only?) cookies (if so, how many per child?) brownies (not terrible festive, are they)...the list goes on and on forever. After some debate I settled on cookies. Festive, but not too much sugar or mess. Now the big question remained, do I bake them or buy them? After much internal struggle I decided that I would make gingerbread Christmas trees with C as he had so much fun making them when we had done them as a holiday activity over the weekend. I could perhaps regain some of the domestic diva points I had lost during the cookie exchange fiasco last week.

I rolled, C wielded the cookie cutter, and we baked. All was good in the land of domestic divadom. I didn't burn them, they all looked exactally the same cooling on the counter (as in a class of ten 2 and 1/2 year olds, all things must be EXACTALLY the same), and they actually tasted perfectly homemade.

As I was making dinner, however, I heard a crash, shatter, "mamaaaaaa." C has dragged his step stool over to the counter to inspect the cookies and accidentally knocked half of them onto the floor. I no longer had ten cookies that looked exactally the same, but rather seven cookies almost intact and several broken ones. I silently sighed while reassuring C that it was all OK, accidents happen, and we'll just think of something. He tearfully looked up at me and said "That's OK Mommy, you go buy more at the grocery store." No "we'll make some more, right?" or "you'll fix them, right?" but "you'll buy them." How sad is it that my son knew exactally what I was going to do, as at 8:45 at night I joined the line of other last minute mommies at the local grocery store casing the cookie display.

I think it might be time for me to scream uncle to the domestic diva gods. But for now I'm off to try to make pumpkin bread (from a mix) for C's teachers. Wish me luck....