Onesies and Cookies

I. Onesies

Last year the kids loved wearing onesie pajamas, so when Jay grew out of his old fleece onesie, I decided to get Christmas onesies for everyone. I wanted everyone to have their own color, and Old Navy had exactly five patterns available in our sizes when I was online, so I ordered one of each. Jeff got stuck in the heart onesie because it was the only one in his size. Jay's onesie is the same size as mine. The snow and gloom has hung around so long that I decided to get a family onesie picture in the stark winter landscape. 

I prepped my family on Friday night: "I would like two things to happen tomorrow: one--kids clean the bathroom, and two--family onesie picture outside!" It worked. I have learned that mental preparation is the key to taking any family photos. When my family knows a photo shoot is coming, it becomes a family activity rather than a last-minute chore. The other key to family photo shoots is to keep them under five minutes every time in order to build trust, so when I say "family picture time!" they can trust that it won't be a 45 minute ordeal. It will end quickly. I set up my cute little tripod and used the remote camera trigger again for lightning fast family photo success. These pictures are silly and they make me happy.

Jay was wearing my crocs slip-on clogs, which are 4 sizes too small for him. He looks pretty tall in these pictures because he was on his toes a bit due to the too-small shoes. But he is closing in on 5'9'' fast.

There's nothing like four minutes in the snow to make you want to snuggle up on the couch for some Saturday morning cartoons!

After our photo shoot, I went on a run in my fancy new Hoka Carbon X shoes. They are my first ever pair of running shoes with a carbon plate inside and what a ride. Thankfully the roads were clear so I just had to tiptoe/wade out of our driveway and then it was smooth running from there.

II. Cookies

Saturday, December 17th seemed like a good time to finally make our first Christmas cookies of the season. I am not a big baker-of-treats, and I especially dislike baking alone, so I had been putting this particular tradition off all month long. But Christmas was a week and a day away, and it was time for some cookies. I waited for Saturday so I could have my children help me. I have streamlined our Christmas cookie production to three family favorites: snowballs, gingersnaps, and chocolate snowtops. The gingersnaps and snowtops had to be chilled before baking, so we made that dough first. 

I turned on Karen Carpenter's Christmas album, preheated the oven, and got out the bowls and measuring spoons and recipes. It was almost 11am. I had just run and showered but it felt a bit too early for lunch so I thought I'd whip up three batches of cookie dough, eat lunch at noon, and then bake some cookies after lunch. HAH. One hour to make three different types of cookie dough with two young helpers? HAH. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own optimism that I forget to live in the real world, where baking with kids equals a kitchen coated in sugar, flour, molasses, honey, and eggs. 

Baking is either a one or two person job, especially in a skinny galley kitchen like ours. When there are more than two people in the kitchen trying to help make the same batch of cookies, chaos grows with every teaspoon. In Pigs At Christmas, one of my favorite Christmas books from my childhood, the pigs make all kinds of messes while they are decorating their house for Christmas and baking cookies for Santa. That book is timeless because it captures the chaos of KIDS so perfectly. Our cookie baking session followed the plot line of Pigs at Christmas almost to the letter. 

Sweet Amber was so enthusiastic, helping dump flour into the bowl (poof!), opening lots of butter packets (slime!), and turning on the kitchen aid mixer (sugar mist!) The molasses took forever to all pour out of the jar, and it dribbled and dripped everywhere when Rose dumped it out. I kept having to wash my sticky hands till they were crispy dry. Once the gingersnap dough was finally made and chilling in the fridge around noon, I was feeling hungry but thought we could at least get through one more batch of cookie dough before I paused for lunch. 

That was my mistake. We were not only following a recipe for cookies; we were also following a perfect recipe for hanger.

But this was a mother daughter activity and I wasn't that hungry. Even though the first batch of cookie dough took twice as long to make as I expected, for some reason I still thought we could quickly mix up a second batch in time for lunch. We whipped the butter and sugar together without spraying it across the kitchen. I melted the chocolate chips. Added the vanilla. Amber cracked the eggs. 

Amber is usually pretty good at cracking eggs, but she was off her game during our cookie session. She had picked lots of shells out of the bowl of gingersnap dough, but for the snowtops she ran into a different problem. She completely missed the bowl with the first egg she cracked, landing the egg yolk and goo on the countertop. It seeped under the Kitchen Aid mixer and dribbled down the side of the cabinets. I managed to scoop it into the bowl and wipe up the mess without losing my patience, but apparently that misfired egg scraped the bottom of my patience barrel. The next egg went into the bowl, but Amber somehow collided with me while holding the eggshells, sliming the side of my pants with a trail of egg yolk. 

That was it for me.

"I don't want egg on my pants!" I hissed. I may or may not have stomped my foot like a petulant child--I can't remember for sure, but I felt the frustration growing inside me like a shaken bottle of soda. In order to avoid snapping at my daughter (more than I already did), I dashed (stormed?) out of the kitchen, past Jeff, and into my bedroom. I shoved the door closed with extra force (it sticks in the door frame so it's impossible to slam, but actually quite satisfying to close in anger). Then I paced around my bedroom, breathing deeply and searching for my sanity. As I calmed down, I noticed how hollow my stomach felt. I was shaky--not with rage or frustration, but with pure hunger, which had morphed into the dread hanger. After a few laps around my room, a few prayers, and a lot of deep breaths, I returned to the kitchen and finished mixing the dough. 

While I worked on the dough, sweet Rose voluntarily began boiling water for my lunch of doctored delicious Ramen (discard the seasoning packet, drain the water, and add sriracha, soy sauce, and a dash of oyster sauce to the noodles, plus a squirt of lime juice and some cilantro leaves--so tasty). It's amazing what a bowl of noodles will do for a hangry mother's mood! After lunch, I wasn't exactly excited about making that final batch of cookies, but we did it, and all three kids rolled those snowballs into balls so fast--it only took 3.5 Christmas songs for them to roll the snowball cookies, and another 12 minutes to bake them. It was a relief to be done, and the cookies tasted good.

The egg situation. At this point I was still aware enough to recognize the ridiculous chaotic impossibility of the situation, so I snapped a quick picture to remember the reality of cookie baking with kids. This ended up being the only picture I took of the whole process, haha.

On a scale from one to ten, how crazy are my eyes at the end of the cookie fest?

We could tell that Amber was feeling much better from her sickness on Saturday because she commenced operation annoy big sister. She got very creative with how she bugged Rose while Rose played the piano on Saturday afternoon. My favorite (not pictured) was when Amber sat on the chair behind the piano bench and walked her feet up Rose's back while Rose tried to focus on playing a song. 

Jay requested corn rows in his hair to wear to church on Sunday. Jay is such an under-the-radar guy in his fashion choices (his words) that I confess to being quite surprised at his request! I had to shush my inner 1999 conscience that worried this hairdo was too much for church, and instead I made sure to braid Jay's hair very neatly and nicely for church. I can't even do real cornrow braids--I only know how to do one kind of French braid, but I thought they turned out great! 

Jay has such nice hair and I had fun braiding it. He sat very stoically while I yanked and pulled on his hair for close to 20 minutes before church. He said "the pain is all in my head."

Jay wore his braids for 2 hours of church and then another hour or so afterwards before taking them out.

I created this meme because this might be my favorite line from The Santa Clause 2 movie, which we watched on Friday night. This is the tooth fairy, aka The Molinator, who ends up flying four people to the North Pole to save Christmas, using his small sparkly fairy wings. After his final trip carrying people to the North Pole, when everyone begins rushing around to save Santa's workshop, the tooth fairy quietly stands off to the side says "If anyone cares, I'm exhausted!" Nobody really acknowledges him, and even though he basically saved Christmas by doing the legwork (or wing-work, as it were) to get everyone where they needed to be, in the end he doesn't get much thanks or glory. I relate to this on so many levels, especially after putting elaborate braids into my son's hair and baking Christmas cookies with my kids!