Baking success.

Success: I let my son help me bake. And I actually let him do it all.
Failure: I ate cream cheese icing without Lactaid first...

There are a lot of days where it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything worthwhile as a parent. I'm sure I raise my voice too much, rush the kids through fun things, take too long doing boring things we have to do, and so on.   But on the weekend, my husband wasn't feeling well and wanted to chill on the couch watching a show on Netflix. ( admittedly this is his favourite thing to do).  Our youngest was feeling restless and it was raining, so I decided to bake and use up the pumpkin I had in my fridge. This led to a parenting success for me.
I normally don't really enjoy when the kids help me in the kitchen. Because I like to just get in there, get my recipe done, and get on with whatever other million things I need to do.
But I thought, two birds with one stone. Amuse our youngest and use up our pumpkin at the same time.
So I asked Z to wash his hands, get a stool and meet me at the cutting board drawer.  You should have seen his face light up. He washed his hands and raced off to get the stool ready.
Then to his delight, I let him put in everything. Every. single. ingredient.
Yes, yes, it did make it take longer to prepare the batter. But he cracked all four eggs with careful concentration, added the other ingredients, and also listened to the instructions when they called for gentle stirring of powdered ingredients, vs the blending of everything else.  And he was proud.
I let him decide on the final ingredient additions, nuts, no raisins- and a handful of chocolate chips. And the pan sizes- he opted for 1 loaf, 12 large muffins and a panful of minis.
 He was so excited, racing out when the timer went off to check for doneness.
I let him have the first taste of a muffin, and he declared them delicious.Though he wanted them with cream cheese icing, and I thank my friend Kim S for tipping me off to the scrumptiousness that is Pioneer Woman's carrot cake icing. (well, it's really her mom's friend Sigrid's if I recall correctly)
This is the recipe we used for the bread:
 http://allrecipes.com/recipe/downeast-maine-pumpkin-bread/    although I substituted lactose free milk for the evaporated milk, and we pretty much doubled the cinnamon, tossed in some vanilla, allspice and nutmeg, ginger. ( I was missing some of the spices it called for so I subbed in what I could). Last time I made this I added raisins, it was good. This time I chopped up almonds. Also good!
And then we used Pioneer Woman's Cream cheese icing, from "Sigrid's carrot cake" recipe, for people who wanted icing. It's really delicious.  The icing instructions are after the carrot cake instructions. Also tasty.  http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/sigrids-carrot-cake-perfect-for-easter/

I'm not going to pretend to be a food photographer,  but here is a snapshot of our final product-

This one's a draw.

Today's success: We were on time for school, and although my youngest was sniffling when I said goodbye, he went willingly to join the name hunt activity his class was doing. And then I learned later from his planning time teacher that he put his hand up and was participating. YAY!   so...all kids out the door, and at school on time.
Failure: Child number three called home sick at lunchtime. Sigh. Can't win 'em all.

On the bright side it's 26 degrees in October! So lovely out.

Success #2

Parenting success: I remembered to wash a load of stuffed animals that they mentioned smelled stale and that they wished daddy would wash.  They were both very happy to come home to fresh fluffy friends. Yay me!

Today's non-success. (I've decided failure is too harsh):  Bedtime. Sleep has not been achieved after 1 hour. 

It was not a great day overall, in terms of kids' behaviour.   My little grump woke up in an unpredictable mood and was a devil to keep moving and getting ready for school.  Even now, 15 hours after he woke  up, he's still awake. He had school and then played at the park for an hour and half before dinner and then we played outside  again after dinner. He should be asleep.  He is not.  He is driving me, and his sister,  absolutely teeth grittingly, batty.    "Mom, do termites have ears?  ". Me "shh".  

"  Mom, wouldn't it be weird if during feu rouge, feu verts, people still went even on the rouge?"

Me. Yes weird. Now, Shhhhhh!!!!

"Mom, guess what happened at school today?" 

Me *screaming in my head*

And his sister shouting from her bed "be quiet!!"