The Most Important Part of This Is the Frosting Recipe.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks and I don’t like to complain, but… well, actually, I do.  It’s cathartic.  Tony has been studying late, we’ve had house projects (new roof!) exploded all over the yard and garage (painting fascia in the garage, which I completed just in time for it to rain – so now I can park inside again, but we can’t put it up and I can’t paint what’s already on the house and the unpainted and ugliness and undone-ness of it all causes me stress), and the kids went plum nuts recently. 

 

I think they’re both going through a growth spurt.

 

2T!  Already!

 

This big kid can climb out of his crib totally unassisted now.  His newfound ability has coincided with him deciding that sleep is for fools, especially if one can get out of one’s crib all by oneself.  The result: mom doesn’t get anything done for an hour after bedtime because mom is continually walking Jamie back to bed and insisting on sleep to varying degrees of success.   I finally won last night when I ran though a litany of animals, stating “the cows are asleep, the dogs are asleep, the chickens are asleep…” etc, etc, until I ran out of animals and I finally said, “And Jamie is going to sleep!”  And he looked at me and said, “Goat go night-night?”  Yes, Jamie.  Goat go night-night.  You go night-night, too, for the millionth time.

 

And then he climbs out of his bed at 6 am and comes to wake me up.  So add tired to the list of stressors.

 

Oh, and he’s also getting his two-year molars.  Sheesh.

 

 

This big kid earned a Transformer toy by being responsible and “listening to his body” and not having any accidents for twenty whole days.  Thank God.  On the flip side, Charles is also growing, and it seems to be his style to throw a terrible tantrum every day when he is in the middle of a growth spurt.  The other day he tore his bed apart, because, when he’s angry, Destruction is his middle name (free naming advice: that would be a kick-ass middle name).  When he’s finally asleep every night, I stare at his little boy body that has chubbed up and made him look younger recently, I smell his hair, and marvel at how he can look like such an innocent angel and yet scream so loudly when he’s mad.

 

There’s stress at work, too, with big projects to bring home and mull over and research every night.  It’s no wonder I’ve been eating my feelings.  It’s a terrible cycle that when I can’t exercise (because Tony’s not home and I can’t just leave the kids alone and go for a run), I eat more.  The other night I made chocolate chip cookie dough frosting (yeeeessss, frosting) and poured myself a glass of wine and then proceeded to stuff my face and take big gulps in between walking Jamie back to bed.

 

 

3/4 C brown sugar, a pinch of salt, 1/2 C softened butter, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, some chocolate chips, stir until you can fool yourself that you have burned enough calories mixing that you are justified in eating it with a spoon. 

 

***

 

Something wonderful happened yesterday, and that’s that my new jewelry box showed up!  I bought this one on Amazon and I love it.  I finally decided that I was never going to find an all-wood, wall-mount jewelry box that I loved and so I stopped trying.  My inner awkward teenager told me to buy something colorful, so I did.  I always listen to my inner awkward teenager.

 

See my Caboodle?  My inner awkward teenager still loves it.

 

     

Oh, it could be bigger.  I have inherited a ton of gaudy, big costume jewelry from my grandmother and not all of it fits.  But now I can find all my good jewelry and I have some space to add more.  I found pieces in the bottom of my little cedar chests that I had completely forgotten about.  No more!  Jewelry organization is mine!