Pearl: Age Four

Ahh! The dangers of FarceBook! I post pictures of Pearls birthday cake and then promptly crossed it off of my list.

Poor, poor neglected bloggy.

Sooooo.... the cake!

Behold my first attempt at covering a cake with fondant!

I learned from my small foray into store bought fondant with Birdie and Lilac's cakes in February; the stuff is only technically edible. As in, you can eat it, it won't hurt you, but it is naaasty! My SIL Gingerbird suggested that I try a homemade recipe for fondant that uses marshmallows and powdered sugar, and the Internets are rife with how-to videos on making it, so I gave it a whirl.

Highly recommend it. The texture and the flavor are more in the realm of "I could eat that" even if it is not quite "I'd like to eat that." Not even the kids could manage much more than a few bites, but then that may be because I went a little too thick with the white cover.

Ya'll, one recipe has a whole bag of powdered sugar, a whole bag of marshmallows and a half cup of shortening. Whuff, that's some challenging eatin' even for the younger set!

So yeah... too thick. Since this was my first ever try at covering a cake, and I was doing it with a bare hour to go before time to leave for Pirate Island for the party, I went thicker since I was afraid if the fondant cracked or tore, I would never get the job done in time. The result was a layer that was soo thick and heavy, it smooshed the whole cake down into a squashy couch cushion sort of a look. Not what I had intended, but it didn't look terrible either. I will do it different next time!



Behold! My four year old! Another area of excessive pride, but for vastly different reasons than the cake.

Grateful

It has seemed that my world has been washed out and tired the past week and a half; today I am seeing in color again.

I can also eat food with only a minimal assist from a glass of ice water.



To celebrate my new found freedom, I share with y'all the fun activity we are doing here in Chaos this month. We made a tree out of black butcher paper (cuz they didn't have any brown), and we write a thing we are grateful for on each leaf. We kicked it off on Monday evening as a part of Family Home Evening, and we add a leaf per person each evening. I hope that by Thanksgiving the kiddos will have an inkling of why we celebrate it., and I hope that the holiday will be a little more meaningful for them than, "whee! Punkin PIEEEE!"

That remains to be seen.

There is also an empty bird nest and a hole in the tree trunk where a family of owls live. It doesn't correspond with any cool moral lesson or anything, the girls insisted is all.

I have just decided to go and get a new leaf and write "Pirate Island" on it with glitter. Pearl has agreed that going to Pirate Island (the new Chuck E. Cheeze, only with better food) for her birthday will be just the thing. I hope that it will make the day special for her, as I will be hard pressed to do more than make a cake for the kid, and getting the house ready for a party is out of the question for me right now. Zero reserves.

Also there is the awkwardness that she thinks all of Birdies and Lilacs friends are her friends, and should come to her party. She is only just now starting to branch out and make friends of her own age in the hood, and I am not able to get it together enough to find out who she pals around with at pre-school. So yeah... a little "family party" that is extra special yet low-effort, is just the ticket.

Sunday Pic: I Will Survive

Strep throat? As it turns out, maybe I had strep throat. Sure, I tested positive for strep, but as it turns out a person can be what is called a "carrier" for the strep, without actually having it.

So maybe I am a carrier and didn't have strep throat, instead I had a rather horrific mutant virus that swells a girl's entire soft tissues in the old throat-n-neck-y-o region and puts open ulcers all over her pharyngeal, tonsils, and uvula while also causing huge fevers and general misery.

Or maybe I had the strep and the virus together. Cuz I is spay-shull an' I gits to. No joke! So special, in fact, that I would like to point out, that while I am grateful that no one in this house came down with either said virus nor strep.... I find it highly suspect that no one else in this house came down with said virus nor strep.

The upshot of all of this is that I am still sick, and very likely have three days more to look forward to this; and by "this" I mean the open sores in the back of my mouth and down my throat. The self pity is of a wallowing depth, and I plan on taking a loooooong bath in it.

This also means that I missed Halloween. I missed it, and I have about as much grace about the fact that I had to miss it as any six year old might. For those of you who don't have kids, allow me to translate: tantrum. Good thing for everyone I am the mama... so I kept it a quiet one, but were tears shed? Yes. But it may be because I got mad enough to try to eat a piece of Halloween candy, and the sugar burned the crap out of my ulcers on the way down. The pink polyjuice potion looking crap the doc prescribed for me to gargle with thrice daily so that I can eat something, is really only up for the job of helping me choke down unseasoned soft scrambled eggs, or plain mashed potato and the like. Fun sized Butterfingers bar? Not so very much.

Here is a pic of Lilac and Pearl before they went to school for their parties and parades. I didn't even manage to get one of Birdie's re-vamped costume... I have nothing of Henry's super cute pirate costume and nothing of Dadguys poacher outfit that still makes me snort with laughter. Obviously I skipped a costume of my own, and went straight to for unkempt deathbed sort of a look.

... and I am remembering now that a few years ago when I had the "almost pneumonia" that I now realize was "actual pneumonia," I went through this whole thing of feeling rundown and I kept catching everything that came down the road and made you fell like ya wanted to die. I remember because this new doctor (one at the clinic that I had not ever been to see) wants to start trying to figure out if there is an underlying cause to all the creeping crud, or if maybe I am just lucky. He's starting with Diabetes. Pretty sure I don't have Diabetes, but this is where my last doctor started in the trying to figure what is my malfunction.

Anyway... all I am saying is now I remember: I have been here before, and yet I was able to get to a place where I was running and strong and feeling very, very good. I did it before, I will do it again. It's very possible that there is nothing wrong with me past the damage done from having my Henry boy-o. I know that pregnancy is a big strain on my body, and four pregnancies spaced fairly close together in my mid to late thirties? Perhaps I got off lucky with a little round of the "I-feel-sickies." So yeah, I am gonna wallow for a while, then go back and take a sugar test and then see where to go from there.

Cuz i am sick, but i am not beaten.