6:15pm: I'm leaving yoga, and then the idea of the century hits me - I should make cupcakes for the kids class tomorrow for Valentine's day!!!!!!!!
Ok so if you are reading this, and you don't know me...I am not really a "baker" per say, as in I don't bake. Ever. Baking makes me anxious - I don't do that shit. Also, I don't really give two craps about Valentine's day (but I won't get into that right now). Where this idea came from, at this point in time, I was not entirely sure?
So cupcakes. Ya. I drive out to Danny's mom's and pick up the kids and before I could really think things through, like the hero I was attempting to be, I yell "We're going to make cupcakes!"
I hear a voice in my head say "Uh what? We are going to do what?" There's no turning back now...I'm hooped. My kids faces turn from confused to over-fricken-joyed in 2 milliseconds.
The adventure commences. We drive to the store. While we are there we run into Uncle Darryl (good friend of ours) and as we are grocery-store-bantering my kids are doing laps of the baking aisle. I look at Darryl and ask what a person would get if say, they wanted to bring cupcakes to school? He picks up some tinfoil cupcake holdy thingies with some cupcake paper whatchamacallits and hands it to me. I fist pump and throw them in the cart. We are all set, let's do the damn thing.
After a lot of "stop that/put that down/get over here" we get our $18 dollar cupcake assembly kit. (Oh man do those exist? That would be awesome).
7:30 We arrive home. We search high and low for the valentine's we bought the week before to take to the other classmates. We finally find them and I set the kids up with markers and the class list and head into the kitchen to get prepped for "baking". Have I mentioned they are 5?
Now if by baking, you mean throwing my good friend Betty Crocker's pre-mixed concoction of (every sugar sensitive kids nightmare) ingredients into a bowl - you would be correct! Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lilly ishelping taking over Oliver's job of putting the heart stickers on and a screaming match ensues. Time out gets laid down and Lilly goes to her room to hyperventilate.
Back to the baking...
I ask Danny how high to fill the cups. I ask Danny what I do with the empty muffin slots, poor water in? I am sure I heard that somewhere once? Or was it oil? I start to panic. I calm down. I get my shit together and get them in the oven. They rise. I check them with a chopstick because I don't have toothpicks.
8:30 As I am mixing the red dye (oh man don't tell my naturopath!) into enough icing to throw a kid into a diabetic coma (I am the teachers worst nightmare right now!) I realize that because of my not-good-at-parties-or-baking-or-crafty-things-mom complex that I am attempting to overcome and impress my kids with this new zest for homemaking skills. Did I mention I am on a candida cleanse whilst this is all happening?!?! Ugh.
That's when I heard the saboteur "I am just not that mom. I don't enjoy it"...maybe because I have labeled myself "bad" at it. I get stressed because I feel like I should be better at it and pressure myself. I go to other parties, and see other moms with home baked goods and I cower in the corner with a metaphorical dunce cap on. I feel like a loser.
So I take a step back and I start laughing! Here I am making shitty ass out of the box cupcakes
(with red dye no less) for a bunch of 5 year olds because I don't feel good enough! Whoa Grace, whoa. Check yourself. It doesn't help that Danny's mom and my own mother are like the worlds greatest freakin' bakers and own that shit hard. I compare myself to them all the time, wishing I had paid more attention while my mom made her own bread/pasta/pickles/dresses/shoes/paintings/everything.
Well fuck you bad-mom-complex you can take a mo'fucking hike. Ain't nobody got time for that! I'm a good mom, and I do other kick ass mom things.
Just then my darling son walks into the kitchen in his jammies looking as sweet and cute as a button (why are buttons cute?) and with a twinkle in his eye he says "Thanks Mom, for making cupcakes for my class, I really love you."
And yeah, that right there, made the whole escapade worth it. The cupcakes are going to school, sorry Madame Teacher, it's happening!
I got to grow a little and see that stepping outside my comfort zone wasn't so bad, as long as I am not doing because I am harshly judging myself, or trying to prove to the imaginary audience in my life that I am good enough - that doesn't feel good. Maybe baking can be fun when I do it my own way, and maybe it's just not my thing - I dunno, I will investigate but what is MOST important here is regardless of all that is...I AM GOOD ENOUGH.
9:30pm (This is now cutting into my before bed alone all by myself time) and Danny walks into the kitchen as I am putting the cupcakes into a veggie tray because the trays I bought didn't actually have lids. The one cupcake I have left that the kids promised Omi (Danny's mom) is this tiny little cupcake that I didn't put enough dough-mixture-stuff (?) into and I hold it up and say "well I think I outdid myself, your mom is going to be impressed!" Danny looks at me sideways as if to say "Guess again" and I burst out laughing.
He grabs me and says "You know what would make this Valentine's day perfect?" and I look into his eyes and he says the thing every woman longs to hear...
"A b.j."
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY LOVERS!
With love and gratitude,
Grace Karyn
Hearts and stuff!
Ok so if you are reading this, and you don't know me...I am not really a "baker" per say, as in I don't bake. Ever. Baking makes me anxious - I don't do that shit. Also, I don't really give two craps about Valentine's day (but I won't get into that right now). Where this idea came from, at this point in time, I was not entirely sure?
So cupcakes. Ya. I drive out to Danny's mom's and pick up the kids and before I could really think things through, like the hero I was attempting to be, I yell "We're going to make cupcakes!"
I hear a voice in my head say "Uh what? We are going to do what?" There's no turning back now...I'm hooped. My kids faces turn from confused to over-fricken-joyed in 2 milliseconds.
The adventure commences. We drive to the store. While we are there we run into Uncle Darryl (good friend of ours) and as we are grocery-store-bantering my kids are doing laps of the baking aisle. I look at Darryl and ask what a person would get if say, they wanted to bring cupcakes to school? He picks up some tinfoil cupcake holdy thingies with some cupcake paper whatchamacallits and hands it to me. I fist pump and throw them in the cart. We are all set, let's do the damn thing.
After a lot of "stop that/put that down/get over here" we get our $18 dollar cupcake assembly kit. (Oh man do those exist? That would be awesome).
7:30 We arrive home. We search high and low for the valentine's we bought the week before to take to the other classmates. We finally find them and I set the kids up with markers and the class list and head into the kitchen to get prepped for "baking". Have I mentioned they are 5?
Now if by baking, you mean throwing my good friend Betty Crocker's pre-mixed concoction of (every sugar sensitive kids nightmare) ingredients into a bowl - you would be correct! Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lilly is
Back to the baking...
I ask Danny how high to fill the cups. I ask Danny what I do with the empty muffin slots, poor water in? I am sure I heard that somewhere once? Or was it oil? I start to panic. I calm down. I get my shit together and get them in the oven. They rise. I check them with a chopstick because I don't have toothpicks.
8:30 As I am mixing the red dye (oh man don't tell my naturopath!) into enough icing to throw a kid into a diabetic coma (I am the teachers worst nightmare right now!) I realize that because of my not-good-at-parties-or-baking-or-crafty-things-mom complex that I am attempting to overcome and impress my kids with this new zest for homemaking skills. Did I mention I am on a candida cleanse whilst this is all happening?!?! Ugh.
That's when I heard the saboteur "I am just not that mom. I don't enjoy it"...maybe because I have labeled myself "bad" at it. I get stressed because I feel like I should be better at it and pressure myself. I go to other parties, and see other moms with home baked goods and I cower in the corner with a metaphorical dunce cap on. I feel like a loser.
So I take a step back and I start laughing! Here I am making shitty ass out of the box cupcakes
(with red dye no less) for a bunch of 5 year olds because I don't feel good enough! Whoa Grace, whoa. Check yourself. It doesn't help that Danny's mom and my own mother are like the worlds greatest freakin' bakers and own that shit hard. I compare myself to them all the time, wishing I had paid more attention while my mom made her own bread/pasta/pickles/dresses/shoes/paintings/everything.
Well fuck you bad-mom-complex you can take a mo'fucking hike. Ain't nobody got time for that! I'm a good mom, and I do other kick ass mom things.
Just then my darling son walks into the kitchen in his jammies looking as sweet and cute as a button (why are buttons cute?) and with a twinkle in his eye he says "Thanks Mom, for making cupcakes for my class, I really love you."
And yeah, that right there, made the whole escapade worth it. The cupcakes are going to school, sorry Madame Teacher, it's happening!
I got to grow a little and see that stepping outside my comfort zone wasn't so bad, as long as I am not doing because I am harshly judging myself, or trying to prove to the imaginary audience in my life that I am good enough - that doesn't feel good. Maybe baking can be fun when I do it my own way, and maybe it's just not my thing - I dunno, I will investigate but what is MOST important here is regardless of all that is...I AM GOOD ENOUGH.
9:30pm (This is now cutting into my before bed alone all by myself time) and Danny walks into the kitchen as I am putting the cupcakes into a veggie tray because the trays I bought didn't actually have lids. The one cupcake I have left that the kids promised Omi (Danny's mom) is this tiny little cupcake that I didn't put enough dough-mixture-stuff (?) into and I hold it up and say "well I think I outdid myself, your mom is going to be impressed!" Danny looks at me sideways as if to say "Guess again" and I burst out laughing.
He grabs me and says "You know what would make this Valentine's day perfect?" and I look into his eyes and he says the thing every woman longs to hear...
"A b.j."
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY LOVERS!
With love and gratitude,
Grace Karyn
Hearts and stuff!
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