C is for "I Need a Vacation"

A few weeks back, my son had his special helper day at preschool, which means he gets to bring in a "special guest". And this "special guest" gets to provide a snack and spend the morning trying to keep handfuls of five year-olds from sticking paintbrushes in their ears. I'll be honest, I'm not the best at being the "special guest". Mostly because I'm too busy mainlining Purell and dodging sneezes to notice anything else. But I decided to go a little out-of-the-box for snack time. Instead of the usual cheese sticks or Goldfish crackers, I wanted to make these:
















That's right. It's Cookie Monster. Kickin' it old school with a cookie in his mouth. I was so excited about these. I saw the design on several different baking blogs and immediately had visions of being the coolest mommy ever, which would immediately trump my current status of being the weirdest mommy ever. But then something happened. I made them. Have you ever tried to make blue frosting? My only experience with blue frosting was at our wedding. We had a very whimsical wedding cake that had blue butter cream and white and yellow flowers. It turned everyones mouths blue, but luckily we had a margarita machine to take away any mouth-turned-blue trauma. Making blue frosting is a whole different beast. The blue food coloring was very ninja like. I thought I was being very clean and careful as I added it to the white frosting, but somehow it managed to breach my mixing bowl and end up FREAKIN' EVERYWHERE! It was on my hand, my clothes, the cabinet doors, my coffee maker, the floor...everywhere! There was even some of it smeared on my iPod which was upstairs on my dresser. Suddenly my visions of being coolest mommy ever turned to visions of being the most dreaded mommy ever. I imagined mobs of the other preschool parents dragging me out of my house and stringing me from a tree for turning their children a lovely shade of aqua. So, I had to ditch Cookie, in all his googly eyed glory. Much like getting on the treadmill or trying to wear skinny jeans, it was a good idea in theory, but a nightmare once executed.

In other news, despite my attempts at pulling one over on kid-germs and pumping my son full of vitamin C, echinacea and cod liver oil to try and get through the rest of the school year plague free, he came down with the mother of all colds, that quickly morphed into double ear infections and pink eye. The ear infections he can handle. A little "pink stuff" a couple times a day...no problem. But, have you ever tried to treat pink eye in a five year-old? It should just be illegal for a child that young to get pink eye. When you're an adult and you get pink eye, you can be rational about it. Yes, it sucks and now I have to put these drops in my eyes, and, yes, they're cold and sting and feel a little weird, but that's what I have to do to get better. You wouldn't cry and throw a fit and scream the same way you would if you were being chopped to bits by a maniac intruder. You know you're in trouble when the actual pamphlet from the pharmacy advises you to SIT on your child and pin his arms down to administer the medication. I'm not really a "sitting on my child" kind of parent, so, of course, I tried bargaining. I promised waffles and LEGO sets if he'd just lay still and let mommy put the ookey stuff in. I quickly learned that a five year-old is a big fat liar and will renege on any waffle/LEGO agreements at the last minute. Then I tried to scare him. I got all "fire and brimstone" on him, telling him if he didn't get the medication his head would fall off and he'd end up in the hospital where they'd give him shots every five seconds. This didn't work either, as it only made him freak out more. I quickly realized that the pamphlet from the pharmacy was wise beyond its years. The only real option is brute force. Now, don't get all judgey on me. I don't really use brute force, but I do have to hold his arms down and pry his eyes open. Then I'm "mean mommy" for about an hour after. The best part? I get to do this every four hours for seven days.

Please leave all wine/chocolate/cake donations at my front door. Thanks.