A is back to her regular horrific sleep habits. At least I had a few days of lovely sleep. But don’t expect much bloggy greatness from me right now. I have lots to say, but not much energy to devote to putting it into words. So I’ll just blog in my imagination. Hold on – yep, that was a good one. My imaginary blog friends liked it too. Perhaps I’ll actually enter it into Blogger one of these days so all of you can enjoy it too….

C had a wonderful birthday party. No children got hurt, no major toy sharing fights broke out, and everyone except Julia cheated on pin the ice cream cone on Curious George. C got many cool toys, all with small, choking hazard parts which attract A like a moth to a flame. Lucy the babysitter said he was up for hours reliving the party and the present haul.

The cupcakes turned out on the first try, although there are still a dozen sitting on my counter. Damn you mommies on diets for bathing suit season! Cupcake decorating was a huge hit with the four and under set, and my kitchen was miraculously clean, considering. Thank you mommies for supervising your offspring so well! It almost makes up for the pounds that will be accumulating on my hips instead of yours.

M and I had a lovely dinner, and I had the most amazing after-dinner tea ever. Our waiter was kind enough to tell M exactly how to Google the seller, who must be the last store on the face of the earth not do sell via the Internet. So we will be calling bright and early to order me large quantities of tea. Even if the food had been awful I would have gone back for the tea. It was that good.

I’m now off to find the 40 billion missing toy pieces that I failed to adequately hide. Of particular import are the missing Little People from A’s dollhouse. She has been staring at it and crying “lillil baby, air are dou?” for the past fifteen minutes.

And for future reference, 18 children are a spot too many to have in one’s home for two hours. We will have to cut down our list before next year…

If I were a smart mommy I would currently be whipping through my house cleaning for tomorrow’s birthday party. Instead, here I sit at the computer checking my email and catching up on my blog reading.

If I were an organized mommy I would be taking away all of the toys with many small, hard to find parts in an attempt to try and mitigate the havoc that the 18 children descending on my house tomorrow afternoon will wreak. Instead I am eying the menu of the new restaurant M and I are trying tomorrow night trying to decide whether I want the tuna or the sea scallops. Rebecca, suggestions?

If I were a proactive mommy I would be making cupcakes, just in case I have another baking disaster forcing me to run to the supermarket at the last minute. Instead I am sipping my wine and debating whether to start looking for a babysitter so I can head back to work (it was one of those days).

Unfortunately, I am a lazy mommy and will put all these things off until tomorrow. Ice cream anyone?

A has stayed dry all morning and even deposited her before lunch poop in the potty! I’m a bit befuddled by the whole thing, it’s not like I had any expectations that she would even begin potty training until 2 and a half. While clearly we might still have a ways to go here, do you think this is her way of rewarding me for putting up with her nighttime antics? While I still would prefer a good night’s sleep, a relatively painless potty training experience would go a long way towards making up for the sleep deprivation.

Cupcakes were delivered to school, almost on time. And they were almost edible. Meaning that the children ate them but the teachers sent theirs back home with C. For which I can’t blame them. Would you really eat cupcakes frosted with DARK red frosting? It took an entire bottle of food coloring to turn the icing just the right shade of fire engine red. Truly scary.

I’m on Day 2 (or is it 3?) of single parenting, with one (or is it 2?) more to go. Tempers are a bit short over here, and C put himself to sleep by muttering “I get soooo mad when mommy doesn’t listen to me. I tell her over and over again that I don’t WANT to go to bed and she puts me there anyway.” Pause for a sob sob sniff sniif, and then repeat.

Wags the Dog has been banished from A’s room after today’s Wiggles episode when Wags poured water over Captain Feathersword’s head. A is now afraid that Wags will sneak off to the bathroom in the middle of the night and douse her as well. I can’t say as I discouraged this image, as the thought of not waking up in the middle of the night to Wags singing as A rolled over on top of him was just too wondrous to resist. I can sometimes be a very selfish person.

And with that I am off to bed. Sleep tight Wags. I hear the playroom floor is quite comfortable once you get used to it.

I am currently surveying the disaster that is my kitchen. In less than 12 hours I need to be walking through the doors of C’s preschool with 16 cupcakes or other such treat in hand to celebrate his birthday. So far, I’m 0 for 2 in the baking department today. And quickly running out of ingredients to try again.

I fully admit that baking is not my forte. I can whip up many, many other courses without blinking an eye, but hand me a mixer and a cupcake pan and I freeze like a deer in headlights. So the household baking is left to M, who adores it and has a fair amount of culinary talent in the area. But as M has jetted off to Las Vegas on business, I am stuck dealing with the need to provide celebratory substance to a class full of three and four year olds on my own.

One would think I would have learned my lesson after last year’s holiday debacles. I should have just headed downtown this afternoon and picked something up at the local bakery. But I’ve always thought that birthdays should involve homemade cakes and goodies, and therefore felt obligated to bake. So I took both kids to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients needed to make cupcakes and frosting. Or at least the ingredients I thought one needed to make such things.

Upon returning home and actually LOOKING at the recipes, I realized that, duh, butter cream frosting requires, get this, butter. And in an effort to improve M’s horrific cholesterol numbers, we don’t actually keep such things in our house anymore. Thank god for good friends, as instead of shlepping both kids back to the store I was able to drive twice as far and raid Rebecca’s fridge.

Once the kids were in bed, I began to bake. And I had illusions of baking grander, as instead of just pouring batter into little paper wrappers, I decided to get all creative and bake them into ice cream cones. Ice cream cones, paper wrappers, what’s the difference, right?

Wrong. Apparently batter takes much longer to cook in ice cream cones than it does in paper wrappers. And thank god I was unable to resist biting into one of the finished products, or else I would have been serving raw cupcake batter to a squadron of children who would not have hesitated to make the icky face and spit out the goo. And you KNOW I would have forever been known to C’s friends as “the one who served us raw cupcakes.”

I am now awaiting the second set of cupcakes to emerge from the oven, and if they are a dismal failure as well I am seriously contemplating calling C in sick. What else can I do? I can’t possibly show up for his birthday party with no goodies in hand.

Next year I swear I am delegating this to the bakery. Someone remind me, please????

While swinging at the park today, A looked up at the sky and exclaimed: “I flee to moon! In rockit! I be asternot!” That’s my girl. Think big. Even if it gives your mommy heart palpitations to think of watching you blasted into orbit aboard an explosion waiting to happen….

A has successfully gotten pee into the potty three times the morning after anouncing she had to go. Let the potty training games begin…

Well, last night was not a rousing success as although A did still sleep until 6:30, she did so in our bed. Which is fine with me (hey, I don’t have to get up to soothe her) but not so fine with M. But since he is gone for the rest of the week and will get many nice nights of sleep in a quiet hotel room and many yummy meals out, I don’t feel all that bad that A spent the night kicking him in the ribs. Sorry sweetie….she kicked me in the ribs for nine months. Imagine what it felt like from the inside.
Despite the bed-sharing I am still considering the jammies a success as a 6:30am wake up is much much better that a 5am. One has to have faith, right?

to A’s sleeping success then I will squarely kick myself for shivering all winter. Day two of the A in cotton jammies was even more successful than day one. She slept. Through the night. 8pm to 6:30 am. Did you read that? Just to make sure you did the math right, that’s ten and a half hours of sleep. In a row. Well worth kicking the heat up a few degrees at night when the cold inevitably returns next week.

Phantom, if you haven’t already done so, may I recommend that you get yourself to Old Navy or Carters or where ever and pick up some cheap cotton jammies? It’s worth a shot. I’m still not totally convinced that this isn’t just a fluke, but if this trend continues, Gina, I’ll be calling on you to solve all my intractable parenting dilemmas…