So, I was SUPER BUSY again today despite my best efforts to reverse the PJ effect:
My O.C.D. (and what I am sure is now a full-blown case of adult-onset A.D.D.) kept me plenty occupied with running around and trying to pick up the house, cook tonight's dinner for the hubby (as well as preparing freezer meals for him for next week), cooking and serving an actual sit down breakfast (we may or may not have eaten pita chips for breakfast yesterday; I'm pleading ignorance on that one.), searching for the lost library books that were due today (and praying they were not left in Europe!), trying to get to the blog and do some last-minute Christmas shopping, and finally getting those darn dishes done all in time so we could make it to a gymnastics class! I was completely making myself nuts and having my 4 year-old two steps behind me all morning was not helping. at. all. So, I did what any good parent does, I offered the TV! And mumbling under my breath repeatedly the Mama's Mantra: Dear child PLEASE sit down and watch that darn thing!
After not having any screen time whatsoever yesterday (My God how did I manage that?!), the boy happily chose a Caillou DVD and parked himself on the couch! But being seriously tired of hearing how much Caillou loves the fall *sigh* I leaped up and switched the DVD. "Let's watch the Winter Wonder one, shall we? I think there's one about Christmas on there! You like Christmas, right?", said mama in her most haven't-had-coffee-in-forever-this-must-be-what-crack-withdrawals-feel-like-I-need-a-vacay-I'm-over-today-already voice. Back to the kitchen to rescue the overflowing pasta pot!
So, as I'm juggling hot pans and the overflowing dishwasher, I hear Caillou talking about making Christmas cookies with his mama and the boy talking back to Caillou saying that looks like so much fun. OMG! What's that twangy sound? Oh, that's the sound of little daggers of Mama Guilt hitting the cabinets while I drop and hit the floor! And then I'm hit. And it's a bleeder no, it's a gusher. I immediately drop everything I'm doing and hop on the couch next to the boy. "Honey, how would you like to make Christmas cookies with your mama?" All the while knowing full and well that I do NOT have the setup for homemade cookies ready. I have just invited an excited 4 year-old into my crazy kitchen expecting to just push a chair up to the counter and start cracking eggs!! Oh, for the love how am I going to get out of this one?! Then it hits me!!! I run out to the freezer and....
YES!!!! They're still there!!! I bought 5 packages of these pull-apart, ready-to-bake, don't-have-to-mix-a-dang-thing, refrigerated Christmas cookies last year on clearance and with coupons for ONLY $0.25 each!! I stuck them in the freezer right away thinking I would use them for other holidays (you can just roll out the dough and make other shapes!), or for cookie bars, or for playdates, or for when we needed a last-minute treat to take somewhere, or for next Christmas if need be! And they lasted the year UNTOUCHED! We just have never had reason to use them. Yes, that's right, with a 4 year-old in the house, we have never had reason to bake cookies! The boy is just not into sweets. (Yah, I know, bummer, right?) Any kind of sweets (except for pumpkin pie, and even then it's just the pumpkin part!) so baking on the regular is just not happening. Why bake up a storm for a fam that's not gonna eat anything and then you know who's gonna get stuck eating everything, right? But today was different! This anti-holiday treat child of mine actually wanted to make the cookies and said (and I quote:) "I want to eat THREE cookies!!" Oh, could it be? Has my time to be 'awesome-in-the-kitchen mama' finally come? And then the fantasies started to take over.....Would he sit by the oven waiting impatiently for the timer to beep? Sneak a cookie from the tray when I wasn't looking? Lick the frosting from his fingers? Spill the sprinkles all over the floor? Cry and pitch a fit when he can't have one?
Well, he did like lining up the cookies on the baking sheet! (We saved the scraps for another day when mama has her baking game ready! Balled them up, wrapped them in plastic and then in foil, and then back in the freezer!) And he did come by once to peek in the oven!
When the cookies were cooled, I dug through my pantry and found these! I bought two bottles of both Halloween and Christmas sprinkles (on clearance at Target!) YEARS ago (like years before the hubby was even a thought!) in the hopes that I would have little ones one day to use 'em up! Well, I had to justify my purchases somehow!
And I have learned to always have a can or two of the good stuff on hand, 'cause you never know! Man, this stuff is like the ketchup of the baking world (this and Nutella!). You could put this stuff on sticks and leaves and they would be yummy! LOL
After gymnastics and before nap, I literally had to beg him to try decorating just one! He had no interest in the frosting, but he did do the sprinkles on one! ONE! *sigh*
Couldn't get him to even TOUCH the frosted one!! He thought they looked yucky! :/ But he did grab a plain one from the tray and ate it up....albeit ever-so-slowly!
And he was just plain proud that he got to make Christmas cookies with his mama!
And while I feel totally awful that our very first batch of Christmas cookies was from a package *sigh* I LOVE that we did it together! ♥ And of course, the whole stinkin' batch is sitting on the counter untouched (Okay, not the whole batch. Whatever.) and he hasn't asked for a single one.
One of the hardest things I am learning to do as a parent (even harder than handling milk vomit or cleaning the potty!) is to simply just slow down the craziness of running this ship and spend intentional time with my child, because these are the memories that he will carry with him as he begins to build his own family! And the gift that I want to give him the most this Christmas and every day is A mama who is present.
And p.s. I'm definitely hitting the store tomorrow and stocking up on baking supplies for homemade cookies!
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