Nightmares and cake

As strange as it may sound, nightmares and cake have gone together more often than not in my life over the past decade. Since I am much more adept at baking savory foods like bread rather than sweet foods like cake, making the cake is usually the nightmare. This week, however, I dreamed the worst cakeless nightmare of my life and then had to teach my son how to make a cake the next day.

I. One nightmare to rule them all

In order to keep running through the ever-present cold thick dark fog of January weather, I have been listening to audiobooks while I run. I know that's not a big deal to many people, but one of my "stances" on running has always been that I don't run with earbuds, music, or noise in my head. I have always used running to meditate and find my center, basking in the quiet steady rhythm of the activity. BUT maintaining fitness during winter weather requires drastic measures. Audiobooks to the rescue! Our library has a pretty good selection of audiobooks that I can check out and download onto my phone. I discovered that I love listening to nonfiction while I run! I can't stand snuggling up to read nonfiction, (or even anything that is too thematically heavy), but I love listening to it. I am sticking with memoirs so far, and they are interesting, thought-provoking, and mind-broadening. 

Anyways, this week I took a risk and selected a book with heavier subject matter than I usually tackle. I listened to My Story, by Elizabeth Smart. She read her own audiobook, so it felt even more firsthand and personal than the average audio recording. What a harrowing firsthand account of kidnapping, abuse, faith, and rescue. I was completely absorbed in the narrative, thinking about it whenever I wasn't listening. The audiobook is about 8 hours long. After the first hour of the book, I walked around our house, locking all of the windows. Nearly half of them had been sitting unlocked for who knows how long! I slept fine for two nights, but by Wednesday I was so absorbed in the story that it stuck with me at bedtime, even though I only listened to it while running in the morning. 

Usually I lay in bed and read something light and easy for half an hour or so before I go to sleep, and I did that on Wednesday night, desperately trying to rid my mind of the scary images from Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping story. The poor girl! The light bedtime book I chose starts off with a girl thinking she has a stalker (which turns out to be a ghost which is totally harmless and the story develops in a completely fun, non-creepy way). I've read it before so I knew it wasn't scary, but on Thursday night I only had time to read the part where the girl was scared of her possible stalker. Then I went to bed. 

Cue the ominous music. The stalker-vibes and the kidnapper-vibes must have coalesced into a cocktail of fear in my subconscious while I slept. At 2am I woke up feeling the most scared I have ever been in my entire life. I have been chased, bitten, and terrorized by countless dogs. I have broken my leg and knocked unconscious by a horse kick. I have run a marathon. I have been robbed. I have birthed three babies without an epidural. I have ridden in a car in Italy. All of those harrowing experiences were like summer picnics compared to how I felt when I woke up from my nightmare at 2am on Thursday morning. It was one of those dreams where not much happened, but the feeling of terror just kept building the longer I slept. In the nightmare, an evil man was sneaking around our house trying to kidnap my kids. My kids were in danger and I didn't know if I could save them! It was awful! I woke up, heart pounding, and tried to remind myself that it was just a dream. I tried to calm myself down for a long time with prayers and positive thoughts, but failed. Eventually I rolled over and woke up Jeff because snuggling up with him always feels safe. But I was too tense and terrified to even relax in his warmth. Plus, I had a full bladder!

So I got up and tiptoed to the bathroom, sure the whole time that I was about to get knifed by the scary kidnapper of my nightmare. While I was up, I realized that I would never be able to fall back to sleep if I didn't check on my kids. So I crept upstairs, quaking at my core. I never turn on lights if I wake up in the middle of the night because once lights are on, my brain wakes up and I have a hard time falling back to sleep. But lights were NECESSARY on this rescue mission. So I turned all of the lights on and checked the kitchen door as I passed by. It was unlocked. My insides turned to ice at the sight. I always lock the doors before bed! Why did I have to forget on such a night?? Did I forget?? Clamping down on my rising panic, I quickly locked the door, jumping at the squeak the doorknob made at my touch. Turning on more lights, I cautiously crept down the hallway and peeked in on the girls' room. There they both were, sprawled out in the glow from their string of colorful lights, sleeping peacefully. I stood and looked at them for a while, making sure they were indeed both breathing and calm. I tiptoed across their messy floor and double checked that their window was locked. It was. 

Breathing a little more steadily, I tiptoed over to Jay's room and opened the door. It creaked loudly and Jay sat bolt upright in bed. I assured him that it was still the middle of the night and I was just checking on him, then quickly backed out of the room. Whew! Feeling a little silly for waking up my son because I had a bad dream, (role reversal, anyone?) I turned off the lights and went back to bed. After a long comforting snuggle with my husband, I finally fell back to sleep. 

Lesson 1: Don't read nonfiction books about kidnapping until my babies are in their thirties. 

On Thursday morning, I resolved not to go to bed again until I finished Elizabeth Smart's story. I needed closure before surrendering to sleep again. I had six hours left in the audiobook, though, so after the big kids went to school, I put in my earbuds and listened to Elizabeth while I worked. I cleaned toilets and swept floors. I scrubbed a shower and folded laundry. I finished transferring all of my Wordpress blog posts to blogger. It was a productive morning! With just over an hour left in the story, I went on a run. During the climax of rescue,  reunion, and reflection, I kept choking up and gasping for air on my sobs while I ran. It was just so happy and beautiful! My Garmin watch even recorded those moments of oxygen-deprived emotion as anaerobic rather than the usual aerobic zone. 

At last the story was told. It was all inside me, the bad and the good. I was rubbed raw from the intensity of it, but I was also at peace. Elizabeth Smart's example of resilience and faith was amplified by the horrors she went through and healed from. I came away from her tale raw but uplifted--broken down but remade all at once. She took me on such a journey. I am still working a little on healing from it.

II. Father-son cake contest

I only make three cakes per year: one for each of my kids' birthdays (Jeff has brownies for his birthday, and we buy cheesecake for mine). Our kids are such darling, loyal little subjects that they are convinced that their mom's cake is the best cake they could ever want on their birthdays. Honestly, my cakes usually taste just fine; it's the arduous process of mixing up the batter, pouring it into the pan, baking it correctly, dumping/cooling it without major crumby fallout, and then frosting it without even more crumbling that gets me. It's a whole lot of work with minimal reward--brownies are so much easier and taste so much better! 

Friday night was the cub scout blue and gold banquet, with its traditional father-son cake decorating contest. Friday was an in-service day so Jeff had work but the kids were out of school. We forgot about the cake until Friday afternoon, so I ended up assisting Jay to make the cake. I did my very best not to do anything to the cake for him, but I still found myself doing lots of other things for him. Cake making is most bearable if it is over with as quickly as possible, so I scurried around the kitchen bringing Jay supplies and putting things away, basically being the most attentive/anxious sous-chef of all time. I found a simple recipe online for brownie cake and wrote the instructions down for Jay: mix a brownie mix, a cake mix, four eggs, a cup of oil, and a cup of water and bake for 55 minutes at 350. It was simple and might taste better than plain ole cake. 

The entire process was agonizing to watch. The first step was to open the cake mix. Jay could not get the plastic bag open at all! It took forever, and when he finally poked a hole in it, he had to shake it for another minor eternity to get all of the cake mix out of the small hole in the bag. For the brownie mix, I brought him the kitchen shears to cut the plastic, but they were too dull, so I replaced them with the paper cutting scissors. I totally helicoptered and hovered while Jay dumped and mixed. Watching him pour out the oil was worrisome, but watching him crack four eggs was pure agony. He cracked each egg on the counter top, then held it crack side up and started picking at the shell to open it. With ever egg, I said "HOLD IT OVER THE BOWL!" over and over. I probably should have just left him to his own devices and saved myself lots of stress, but Jay was not very interested in making the cake himself in the first place, so I thought I should at least be there for moral support and to help him focus on the task. 

At last, long last, the batter was ready. I showed Jay how to grease the cake pan with cooking spray and handed over the canister. He sprayed and I gasped. He sprayed and I corrected. He sprayed, and I gasped. It was not a calm pattern. We were both stressed, and the cake pan was drenched in cooking spray. Jay dumped the cake batter into the pan while I scraped out the bowl, and finally Jay put the cake into the oven (I had to remind him that he didn't need hot pads to lift the cake until after it was baked). Sweet Jay. He did his kitchenly duty and was relieved when it was over. I made him clean up after himself--wash the bowl and wipe the counters. When he finished, I asked him what he thought about making cakes. He said, "it is hard!"

Jay scampered off to play with his friends, and I collapsed onto the couch and called my mom to regale her with the ballad of the cake. Mom-therapy is real and effective.

Lesson 2: As much as I dislike making cakes, watching a nine year old boy make a cake is MUCH harder. 

The cake baked up and Jay removed it with hot pads without too much trouble. When Jeff got home, he helped Jay decorate it with melted frosting (Pillsbury to the rescue) and sprinkles, so it looked like a giant donut. I found the idea online and figured it was about as simple as possible. When I suggested it to Jay, he immediately agreed to it. Neither father nor son are interested in aesthetics! But the cake looked great. As it turns out, store-bought frosting stays shiny when it's melted in the microwave, so the donut cake was the most appealing sight on the cake table at the banquet and the crowd chowed it down in no time. For the record, brownie cake is not much better than regular cake. I didn't save the recipe.

January ended with a nightmare and a cake-mare.

 The little sisters were far more interested in making the cake than Jay was.

This is my favorite picture from the ordeal, with Jay cautiously sliding the cake into the oven and the girls licking the whisk in the background.

Rose seems so old until she gets chocolate all over her face. Then she's a little girl again. 

Washing up

Frosting drizzle--the kids could hardly resist licking every drip of that chocolate. It was a tense few minutes, guarding the cake from their tongues and slobbery fingers.

Phone pictures in the church gym are never excellent, but this was the only one I took with Jeff, Jay, and the completed donut cake.

Jay got a few badges or whatever they're called and told one thing he learned from one of the activities: how to carve with a pocket knife.

Amber dressed up in full Wonder Woman power for the banquet. She was so wild that after Jay got his award, I took her to a classroom and let her run wild. When I came back to check on her, I found her standing on the table drawing on the chalkboard.

A few more random pictures from this week:

 We built a giraffe and a tree out of the building straws one morning. Amber collected a handful of blue straws to make water for the giraffe.

 When I wouldn't give Amber lunch at 10am, she took matters into her own hands, biting into three pieces of bread stacked up. She had two other pieces of bread in the toaster when I found her like this. Carbo-loading! I took away two of the pieces of bread and got out some yogurt for her instead--plain bread doesn't fill the tummy for long!

These sisters are such cute friends when they aren't teasing and screaming at each other.

Jay dressed up with a foam kick board on his chest, a Darth Vader helmet on his head, and a plastic knight breastplate on his back and went to battle with his sisters.