This was my birthday “surprise” from my daughters. Made from “scratch” (except for the Reeces peanut butter pieces). Cost about $50 in groceries, apparently. The kids thought it was a cupcake recipe, because it was titled “Peanut butter cupcakes”, but apparently the internet can be misleading at times. At the bottom it said how many cookies it made. They read this after the stuff was already in the cupcake liners ready to be baked, of course. It certainly tasted like cookie on the outside. And a whole lot of sweet richness on the inside. Great with cake-flavoured vodka and the TV turned up loud to drown out any sibling arguing and 8 year old self-righteous bossiness. Or milk.
Several titles of the dessert were suggested that evening: “Cookie Cupcake Soup” “Mushy Yummy Mess” “Reeces pieces cupcake/cookies” and “The Peanut Butter Mistake”. We all liked this one.
It has been long in the planning; big ideas with big hearts, although the actual -planning- and execution of the details were a little sketchy. There were several walks home in the dark with two girls whispering excitedly ahead of me, and meetings behind closed doors. The actual baking got underway with a good dose of realism and was preceded by repeated lectures on my part on safety, cleaning up and interrupting your mother while she is speaking. Full points for safety execution. Not so much for the cleaning. We won’t even talk about the interrupting.
Things can go a little strange and furtive before your birthday or Christmas gift giving, and parents really can be clueless. But then things can be weird any time with children who have big ideas and ask big questions. At around 11:00pm the night before I heard laughing from my 8 year old’s room. Then I hear talking. I’m thinking to myself, “Aw, how sweet. I haven’t heard T. sleep talk for a long time”. But then it continued. I listen. Then I put my ear to the door and realize that she’s talking to my 11 year old! I open the door, and see M. in T.’s bed, lying foot to head with her. It’s a school night! I’m stunned. There’s no way they thought that I would think that this would be a good idea.
I shoo and scold M. back to her own bed and ask them what they thought they were doing. M. tells me they were having a sleep-over. A sleep-over? Last year M. could barely stand to be in the same room with her. T, not the best secret keeper in the world, shouts out to M. as she heads off, “M., you forgot your ipod!” Ah.
“I’ll take that,” I say, pretty irritated now. M. is not allowed to have her ipod upstairs with her at night. There is a reason for it. Too many nights catching her late at night playing on it. In fact, she had lead me to believe that it was in my office before she went to bed that night. I’m not happy. At midnight I hear barking. It’s M.’s ipod. I’m glad I’m still up.
Next morning, I say to M., “What gave you the idea that I would approve of a sleepover on a school night?” M. does not have a lot to say for herself beyond that they had intended to sleep, but her knee was sticking into T.. I just shake my head. Just what I wanted for my birthday, I tell her. Two tired and grumpy children. But I’m the grumpy one.
M. takes the loss of her ipod very well of course. She takes all punishment well. Which is why it has been exceedingly hard to punish her with any effectiveness. But of course I have to return the ipod because the recipe is on it. (But I make her send the recipe to T.’s ipod and take it back. Have to stick to my guns, right?)
I ask T. what was going on after dropping M. off at her bus. T. hangs her head. “I can’t tell you,” she says glumly, “It’s part of the surprise.”
I ask, “Was the ipod part of the surprise?”
“No.” she says. Ok, well I’m justified in that, I think.
It’s not until this morning that I find out from T. that M. had the idea that they would get up in the middle of the night and make these things! M. set the alarm on her ipod so she would wake up. Not that they needed it. I find humour in the idea that the “middle of the night” is midnight. When I’m awake. M. told me none of this, even after all was revealed. Probably knew better by then. Still, it must have been hard to get in trouble and lose her ipod to boot all because of good intentions.
So I have a little extra to be thankful for – two sweet, thoughtful – if misguided – kids. And that the Peanut Butter Mistake did not turn into the Peanut-butter-sorry-about-the-house-burning-down-and-that-trip-to-the-emergency-after-we-fell-into-the-oven-mistake.
All in all letting your kids have full control of all the icing and chocolate chips they wanted was not such a bad idea for one night either. It resulted in a pretty maintenance free evening (for me anyway) filled with lots of love, laughing and hugs.