Crazy Cakes

This link appeared on my Facebook page twice today.
Kids snack ideas on steroids.



Cutest little idea I
ever
did
see!

Look at those perfectly chopped bits of celery made into grassy knolls!
Look at that shredded carrot leprechaun beard!
Adorbs.

But, people,
in all seriousness -
PUNCH ME IN THE FACE REPEATEDLY if I have to ever

EVER

actually
do this.

I get that there are parents that do this stuff.
They probably live in D.C. And have precise little blunt-cut bobs with bangs.
They have prized geraniums and
they button their shirts up all the way to the tip-top button.
They have a mail box in the shape of a Corgie.
They wear heels even in sand.
They actually polish their silver utensils and those utensils didn't come from Big Lots.

And they probably never come screeching into the bus circle three minutes late every day still wearing pajama pants with paper plates covered in syrup remnant littering their floorboard.

I know they're out there.

They're the parents of the kids with monogrammed Pottery Barn backpacks.
The parents of boys named Kelsey.
They don't have to Google what a "Spice Kitchen" is.

And I admire it.

I really do.
I WISH I had the free time to volunteer in reading group.
I wish I always drove for a field trip and could yammer off the school schedule with the accuracy of Rainman.
I wish I cared about going to the state level of ANYTHING.
But I don't.
I just CAN'T.

I admire the idea,
But something ALSO rises in me to yell "I'm gonna wreck it!" And to pound each perfectly shaped mini crust-less sandwich with giant Wreck-It-Ralph fists.

But I admire it.

Right before I hate it.


Upon first seeing this picture today, the very first thought I had
(besides telling myself to stop making my "Crazy Face")
was that my kids could never ever know food like this existed.

How,
I ask you,
after eating a miniature cheese chicken nestled under a snap pea palm,
would they ever be happy with just regular FOOD shaped food ever again?

I already feel pushed to the upper limits of my sanity just having to butter four pieces of bread with dinner while they ask for ketchup and tell me their sippie cup "tastes funny," and while they raise the corner of their tiny food critic lips at me when they see what I'm presenting.

Why would someone even DO this to me?!
Why does this photo even EXIST?!
Who POSTED THIS?!

Un-friend!

All I can think is that this is some sort of terrorist attack.

Is it not enough to have to pack a regular school lunch when all you can dig from your pantry is the crumbs of some herbed popcorn, a Greek yogurt, and a very questionable zucchini?

I'd like to see what they would make of THAT.
If that was a food picture, I'm pretty sure it would be a tiny edible street in Harlem,
or a person shopping while riding a Lark.

I know I've harped on this before, but America,

STOP OVERCOMPLICATING EVERYTHING!

I can't even pick CAT FOOD easily anymore.
Should I get chicken, or beef, or salmon, or tuna, or tuna flaked chicken with beef sauce?
Does he like shreds or pâté?
Soufflé, or chunks?
Wait.
There's GRAVY?!
Is he a regular adult, or a senior adult,or a "mature" adult?
Good grief!
Can I get assistance on isle 13?!
I mean, this is an animal whose tongue and butt regularly collide.
He's not exactly a connoisseur.

Then there are 103 types of squeezie fruits and two full isles of baby wipes?
Why are we coddling them in this way?

I once wondered what that was coming out of Alena's mouth, only to realize it was fly legs.
There's no way she needed eight types of purple beet purée.
She didn't need a PB and J flower.
What she NEEDED was to not ever kiss me with that mouth again,
that's what.

So just STOP.

You're making moms crazy.
You're making Dads afraid of their own wives because "she's making that weird sound again."
You're making kids into over-indulged brats.

Kids don't need food pictures.
I'll give them a picture.
It's of me telling them to
be still and stop wiggling, wnd gagging, and poking their sister's eye, and to eat their dinner and to
just let me sit for
FIVE FREAKING SECONDS.


Besides,

FYI -

It's weird to eat something that's smiling at you.

Movin' on up

To appease the masses, I will blog.

Though the water is just about boiling and I can hear the kids upstairs fighting through Alena's open window. I'm sure it's nothing to climb the stairs over.

I'll let her deal with that.

SO much has gone on since I last wrote.
People keep asking when I'll write another blog and I tell them I will - Just as soon as I'm done breathing into my paper bag.

First of all - I'm pregnant again.

Holy God in Heaven help me.

It wasn't a complete surprise.
We were semi-trying, I guess. I had known I wanted another one and Justin - well - He didn't argue TOO much.

Even still, it was a shocker to go in to the doctor thinking I most certainly had a UTI then to come out with a slip for the OB.

I wasn't even late.

The girls are super excited.
Chloe pretty much thinks it's her baby and I'm just a surrogate.
She keeps telling me what it should be named.
Emily, Vine, Angelina and Milo have been suggested.
Today she actually cried real tears when I told her what we really would be naming it if it's a boy.

She wants Arthur.
I want NOT.

I don't know why we even gave it a second thought, though.
We all know it'll be another girl.
I have a theory that all my miscarriages were male babies. That my body actually physically rejects boys.

Poor Justin.
Set adrift in a sea of emotional imbalance and tearful mascara run stains on the pillowcases he's washing.

We have had moments of "Oh crap. Where are we PUTTING this kid."
But - not to fear - that concept was taken care of for us when we got news that the house we have been renting and have loved like our own is now in foreclosure.
We have to move.

Perfect.

Just what I want to do.
Dry heaving while doing actual heaving.

My first panic attack came when realizing that since Justin had to work and my mom is out of town all week long, the majority of the packing would lie on me. Irritable, allergic to dust mites me.
My packing strategy has bordered on throwing every single item away and starting completely from scratch.

After all, Who doesn't want to feel that they will throw up just from brushing their teeth in the mornings and then have to clean out a 12 year old's hoarded room complete with tins of dust and hair covered gummy eyeballs?

"But Mama! I was SAVING THOSE!"

True story.

On top of all this I've been doing daycare for an adorable little boy named Jaxson.
I love him completely. He's an angel. But even angels have to be kept out of boxes of the aforementioned hoarded pre-teen room.

I was already exhausted just from the hormones.
I now feel on the brink of death daily.
The bags under my eyes have bags of their own.

Even when I try to sleep at night, my mind goes a million miles an hour with thoughts of paint palettes and furniture arrangement, baby names and wondering if I could possibly LOOK as horrible as I feel.

I almost had a nervous breakdown last weekend.
I came about one "She hit me!" away from needing medical assistance.
Justin just kept blinking at me as the veins burst from my neck.
I had been on an emotional roller coaster for days over looking at places and thinking about moving, then not sleeping and all the mood swings. Not to mention the nausea which wasn't just in the morning. It was all day.
It got the best of me.

I did an actual fetal position on the futon for a bit and then felt better.
It really is a "thing."
My family was wild eyed from having their heads bit off all day, but I felt better.

But, now we have a place.



It's great.
We're excited.
It's not tan with brown trim. (gag)
Bonus.
The kitchen is bigger than that of a motor home.
The downstairs bathroom does not require a daily juice fast to get into.
And I am permitted to PAINT.
Glorious.

My mom had so lovingly reminded
- approximately 100 times -
that I may not be permitted to paint in a new place as I had been here.
I responded as any grown woman would by placing my hands over my ears and yelling,
"Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala" until she stopped talking.

I claimed The Secret and ignored all that negative talk.
I just can't handle white walls.
When I'm in a white room I feel like I need to be in khakis and a white button up shirt. Tucked in. With Mom hair.
What could be worse than THAT?!
Perhaps because I feel that I will be surrounded by them in the future,
So let's not jump the gun.

And maybe The Secret worked.
I am now ankle deep in wall to wall Behr paint samples.
I find a reason to go back to Home Depot almost every day for more.
It's almost an addiction.
(I don't know WHERE on EARTH Alena gets the hoarding from..........)

And poor Justin.
That guy is managing the stress as best he can, Bless his heart.
He's actually doing amazingly.

There have only been brief moments of corner rocking and so far
I've been able to talk him down from jumping from a high ledge over all the mounds of stuff in the garage.

Progress.

I do feel sad about leaving here in some ways.
I brought my babies home here.
We've had family holidays and birthday parties here.
There are tons of great memories.
I know where the creaky floor boards are. I can find my way around in the dark.

I've chosen to leave the little girls' room put together until we leave.
To not throw them off too much.
Chloe doesn't even handle moving her lunch time out 15 minutes - I can't imagine she'd do well sleeping on a plain mattress on the floor for a week.

I'm not so worried about Tessa. She'll be fine as long as the Cheese-It's are unpacked first.

I'm thankful we've gotten past the girls asking me, "Mama, why are you taking THAT down?" over every. single. item I took off the walls.
They have the memories of goldfish -
unless they are required to remember something like that I said maybe we'd get frozen yogurt tomorrow.
THAT they can remember.
Over and over and over.

I know that wherever we go, life will go on.
New memories will be made and thankfully they will NOT be memories of a kitchen so small you practically WEAR anyone else who is cooking with you. No one is ever a stranger in there for long.

And then there will be a new Green.

I'm scared of what THIS one could possibly be like.
When my mom asks me to imagine him or her, all I can do is practice my controlled breathing.
I am comforted only by the promise that God does not give us more than we can handle.

God must think I'm Superwoman.

But, what's one more patch of hair pulled out from stress?
What's one more worry line?
Why not add another scream to the choir?
What's the difference, really?
When you're crazy - You're crazy.

There's no insane-ER.

Might as well hold a newborn as I rock back and forth in the corner.