Breakfast Cookies

Today is Jeffrey's 11th birthday, and because of some business my Dad has to do, we aren't having a party or big celebration until the weekend. But he wanted to have chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and so I got up this morning to clean the kitchen and start the pancakes. Now last week while mom was gone, I made the exact same pancakes nearly the exact same way, and they were great - but there were more people this morning, so I had to triple the recipe. But as I poured the batter onto the griddle, the pancakes puffed up, browned to the point of being burned within 10 seconds, and yet were no where near being cooked in the middle. It was distressing; I added milk to thin them out so that they would cook more evenly, but then they took forever to brown and weren't even. I put the salvagable 'pancakes' on a platter in what I thought was just a 'warm' oven to keep them hot, but the oven was at 350 degress and so by the time we took them out they were even browner. It was awful, and completely frustrating because I had done nothing different from the last week. One could certainly argue with validity that because converting fractions was involved in the initial process, I measured something (baking powder maybe?) incorrectly thus causing the disastrous batch. But I was certain that I had done it the same way as last Thursday...

Happily they still tasted pretty good and Jeff was very nice by simply viewing them as 'breakfast cookies' instead of chocolate chip pancakes.

And now I shall proceed with a play by play of my day which you are more than welcome to skip over. I left at 11:30 for the Adamski's, which is where I am now, and the kids are asleep. It was a pretty good day with them, I only had Bryn for a few hours, and while she ate lunch and I read books to her, I found the DVD's and put on Lady and the Tramp. I love those movies that remind you of when you were littler, just wanting to play with your toys and eat food that tastes good. You have no concept or concern for nutrition, because you are always energized, you always feel strong and capable of climbing the top of the play ground or skipping two rungs on the monkey bars, you are never cold and so you don't understand why your mother would insist on you wearing a bulky sweater that just makes it harder for your to run around and play.

Shane and Eve got home a little later, and Eve and Bryn both went down for a nap pretty easily at 2. Auntie Rae came by for a minute to pick up her dress for the event tonight, but snuck out when we heard Bryn crying, awake, upstairs. I only had to chase that little girl around a bit to keep her out of drawers and off of desks (she was attempting to get into a bookshelf I think) while Shane and Eve played mostly on their own. Before dinner we went outside after Bryn had been insisting on seeing the 'deer' which I thought she was imagining but were actually in the drive way, and as soon as Eve saw them she ran out and shooed them away in her trilly, high little voice. Shane was hiding in the grass while I pushed the girls on their swings, and he kept calling me over to 'sneak up on and scare him.' He was very proud of himself too for being able to balance ontop of a rock while I counted to a hundred. I think they finally got tired or chilly, and so we went inside so I could heat up dinner while they watched Mary Poppins. Bryn however was back at all the kitchen drawers, the recycling bins in the pantry, the cleaning supplies in the laundry room. Aunt Rachel had said I could just put her in the play pen to keep her out of them while working on dinner, but she very decidedly protested that and so I held her and did it one handed. Auntie Rae had already laid everything out though, so it wasn't too bad. ( = Once they had eaten they took baths, put on pajamas, and after Shane unsuccessfully tried convincing me that he needed to play one more game, they brushed their teeth. I got Bryn to sleep in about ten minutes, and once she was tucked in I went back downstairs to Shane's room where he and Eve wanted to share a bed - which was funny, because if either of them even so much as moved a pillow that got in the other's way, they were not happy about it. They usually like me to make up a story and put them in it, which I was wary of because I couldn't really come up with anything that would interest Shane. Fortunately they wanted me to read them some books, but once we were done, they wanted me to stay with them until they were asleep.
"Maybe you could sleep on the floor next to us too," Shane suggested a few times. I laid down next to Evie, who was telling me all about one of her princess outfits and something else I didn't quite understand, and tried to encourage them to fall asleep. Every once and awhile I would look over at Shane who had buried himself under a pile of pillows but didn't seem too comfortable there, and once Evie noticed. She touched my eyelids and said in her little voice,
"Go to sleep, Jordan." So I pretended to be asleep, and after about an hour they were still enough that I was able to sneak out.

Bryn was still asleep so I was able to stack all the books, put away the toys, get the bathtub drained with the washcloths rung out, sweep the floor, straighten the pillows and blankets on the couch, start the dishwasher, and I attempted to clean Bryn's highchair - it was too much for damp paper towels and a sponge though. I finished that a little awhile ago, so I just went downstairs and heated up some Chinese food, and resisting the temptation that the ice cream and peanut butter cups presented, I actually made some hot chocolate. I worked on a new idea for a short story that maybe I will illustrate when I learn to watercolor better, and then came up here to record the day.

I need to get some sleep before Bryn wakes up.


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