I’m kind of liking the idea behind daycare.

J goes there for the day and gets his tantrums out of the way while I work, completely ignorant of the fact that he’s going hoarse out there somewhere.

J comes home, tired of tantruming, and becomes the jolliest toddler I’ve ever seen.  He speedwalks after the dog, giggling when the dog tried to get away from the ear-pulling maniac that’s pursing him.  He lopes up and down the hall with his new vacuum cleaner, screaming with glee.  He trots up to me with his arms out, looking for quick hugs and giving sweet little kisses.

He chants the dog’s name, repeats Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma over and over and says “Uh-oh, Spaghettios” when appropriate.

He blows kisses and stays up later just to blow more kisses.

Being J’s mom is the best job I’ve ever held.

As you might remember, I had big plans for J’s birthday/finalization cake. Just that sentence sounds ominous doesn’t it? Believe me, nothing could prepare you for the disaster I’m about to tell you about. Nothing.

So, I’ve practiced that cake and the frosting–once as cupcakes and just last weekend as a full-blown cake, complete with the octopus head on top. I’m not a practicer, by the way, but this one was really, really important to me. I figured out how to get the frosting to the right consistency for both the cake and the icing, how to use the damn icing tips and how to construct the whole thing. I wasn’t expecting it to look like the picture, but it was going to be recognizable, that’s for sure.

J’s party was Thursday and I spent Wednesday cooking all the make-ahead things I could–by the time I left to go to our school’s registration night as Receiver of Yearbook Complaints (”Oh, my God, how can they cost so much!?!” “My beautiful child didn’t pick up his book from three years ago. Where is it?” “Why CAN’T my daughter and her boyfriend use their tastefully nude couple shot for their yearbook senior photo?”) I had put together potato salad, pasta salad and part of the taco dip. That doesn’t sound like much, so I’m probably missing something since it took me all morning.

When I got back at 7 p.m., I came bearing more groceries (and THREE cake mixes) and another Chinese-made hunk of plastic that will probably lower J’s IQ by another 10 points.

By 8:30, I started mixing the cake batter–but these cake mixes needed 3 eggs each, and I only had six. F. T knew I was stressed, even though I didn’t, and immediately volunteered to get the hell out of the house and away from the crazy lady by picking up the eggs. While he was gone, I finished the taco dip, mixed up the crock pot baked beans, and added more dressing to the boring pasta salad. Yes, it took a while. He did return with ice cream, though, in an attempt to calm me.

It didn’t work.

However, I got through the night. While the two layers and octopus head was baking, I managed to clean up the hell-hole of a kitchen I’d messed up worse than I’ve ever seen it. At about 9:45, I pulled everything out of the oven to cool. All was well until I took the second layer of the cake out of its pan.  It cracked in half.  No big deal, I thought.  I put it together, planning on hiding the small fracture with the icing. The rest of the cake was assembled and I went to bed.

At 6 the next morning, I got out the icing I’d made yesterday morning and started re-whipping and coloring it.  As I started painting the icing on the cake, something odd happened.  The whole top layer started to crumble *.  Whole three and four-inch sections came off the sides.

I will not let this spoil the F’ing cake, I thought.  I put on some  acceptable clothing and ran to the store to get more cake mixes and eggs.

When I got home, I made another layer.  For some reason, that layer wouldn’t come out of the pan cleanly.  I shaved off the top to straighten it out and continued with the icing.

Houston, we have a problem.

The layer was cool, but the icing was soaking into the cake layer.

I realized that it would taste disgusting, but I forged on and redid the icing, making it stiffer while the first layer of frosting cooled with the cake in the frig.

The second layer of frosting went on a easier.  It was lopsided.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was going to work.   I placed the cake on the kitchen table to lower it a bit and began decorating the octo-head.  Soon, I needed to mix another color, so I went to the trusty mixer and started mixing away.

When I turned back, I noticed something odd.

The dog was licking a light blue something off his nose.

There were two small areas where the icing was gone from the cake.

Ike had licked the cake.

That was it–it was finally over.  I threw the whole damned thing out and decided to stop in town and buy a cake at the store before the hearing.  There was no way in hell I was starting over.

I guess I’ll make his cake for his real birthday next weekend.

* My guess as to why all this happened:  the humidity was so high that on Wednesday, the cement garage floor had so much condensation on it that it was actually slippery-wet.  Maybe I can blame all this on an act of God.

Today’s project: testing out the new cake junk I picked up at Walmart, of all places. As per Starfish’s suggestion, I did go to Michael’s–but there were no tips, stands or appropriate pans to be had, so while I was picking up a few odds and ends for my page of the Kind Journal Project, which I’ll write about tomorrow, I found most of the things I need right next to the beads I’ll be using. Does that make this an evil cake, if it came from that evil store?

Anyway. Moving on…

Of course, I can’t just decorate a cake the first time without any practice, so I made cupcakes last night in preparation for the big event. I spent tons of time trying to get the right consistency and scraping off the icing I’d tried to carefully pipe onto the cupcake. My first try: the buttercream frosting was way too soft.

So, I stiffened up the frosting with extra confectioner’s sugar and made it too thick. Yay. I futzed around until I got it almost perfect–I think. By then, I’d tried my hand at the poky-looking icing on the body of the octopus in the photo and gotten the hang of it. That border will be the hard part, though, I think.

In the end, I got this:

Overall, I just need to try to be a little more uniform in how I squeeze the icing out of that cool bag I got. The cake will take forever to ice–and when I say that, I mean I think I’m going to allow myself at least three hours–and it won’t look like the picture. I’m not too upset about that, though; I’m not a professional, so it just won’t look like that. All that really matters is that everyone knows how much I love that little guy, and spending three hours on a cake like that certainly will go a long way to show it!

By the way, in reference to that last post: I was definitely kidding about those place card holders. T really wasn’t quite sure, poor guy.

I did mention that I’m in over my head with this cake decoration thingie, right?  Unfortunately, I’ve now built it up so big in my own mind that if the end result resembles anything other than the image that resides in my very cluttered mind, the party might as well big a big, fat failure.

Come on.  Although I said that we’re on track for a beachy sea theme, I’m going to be honest–the cake and a favor bag are about as far as I’m going into the theme, as I’m not into all the food with cute names–you know, like submarine sandwiches and seaweed spinach salad–or shopping at any store with the word “party” in its name.

In order to make myself feel a little better about my impending doom (because, you know, a mom who can’t even throw a decent first birthday party for her child might as well be turned over to CPS right away–her poor kid is bound to be screwed up for life, after all), we all went shopping today.  I bought some drape panels to hang over the once-bare sliding glass doors and color coordinating (if not matching) rugs for the kitchen.  Oh, and a welcome mat.  And a new sprayer for the sink, since the last time we had a party here a considerate guest who was trying to help clean up found out that the sprayer won’t turn off.  Ever.  Well, not until divine intervention comes into play.

Also, I’ve been daydreaming about how pretty tealights would look in the canning jars I’ve got lined up to take to the basement (great excuse for not taking them down, don’t you think?).  Oh, and the beverages we’ll be serving.  Mmm.  Beverages.

Still, I’ve got a lot to learn, like what exactly is a reverse seashell pattern?  Or a bead?  I also filled up a shopping cart at the famed Wilton online store and realized that I’ll be spending $47 on tips, bags, coloring, spatulas, couplers and a gajillion and a half other things that I really don’t need.  I also learned that a revolving cake stand, which I think would really be cool for people like me who normally don’t know better than to slap a cake on a dinner plate and slather on the frosting from there, costs $60, or at least the size of cake stand I’ll need will.  I think I’ll be improvising.

I have talked myself into spending money on this, though.  Of course, I’ll never, ever, ever be able to buy a decorated cake without extreme guilt for the rest of my life.

What I sacrifice for my child.  First, detailed examination of my sex life by reproductive endocrinologists (and just that title would scare anyone, right?)  and now, I’m taking on life-long guilt associated to my possibly inadequate cake decorating skills.  Tomorrow, I’ll be practicing on cupcakes.  I’ll be back with the fate of my mental state later.

I had a little dilemma. It’s been forever and a day, but we’ve finally set a day for finalization, and it happens to be only a week and a half before J’s birthday. Originally, I’d planned on having the family over for a birthday party over Labor Day weekend, but now those plans have been smashed into tiny, little confetti-like pieces; I can’t have people traveling for four hours each way to shower J with attention twice in less than two weeks…or at least, I’ve decided to spare them that pain.

In my excitement after scheduling the long-anticipated hearing, I called two sets of my own aunts and uncles, my two sisters and my parents and then directed T to call his brother, inviting them all to the hearing (hey, J’s joining the whole family, and this is a biggie, as far as I’m concerned!) and a light dinner following the proceedings.

Duh. I should be slapping myself on the forehead now–half of these people had already been invited to the birthday party.

Why must things be so awkward for me? Why can’t things just run smoothly?

Well, after speaking to my mom, it sounds like no one’s weould be upset about the birthday party and finalization being combined into one big, fantastic celebration.

And, to go with such a celebration, what better than a completely over the top cake? So, I went on over to the Wilton crazy cake-decorating people, and I decided that since J loves his little blue octopus stuffed toy as seen in the Baby Einstein videos, an octopus would be a great option for his cake.

How about this with a few changes in icing color and, of course, a change in age?

Looks fun, doesn’t it? That means we’ll do a beachy or sea theme for the party and life will be good. Of course, if the cake doesn’t come out, I’ll be in big doo-doo, since I’ve now told the entire world that I actually plan to pull this off. Have I told you this would be the first birthday cake I’ll have done more than use those plastic tubes of icing you can find in the baking aisle of the grocery store to write someone’s name on the top of the thing? Maybe I’d better do a trial run.

Birth control.

It was a detail I happily brushed aside in early 2002, after several months of truly forgetting a day or two of the pill and a discussion with T about starting a family.  It’s been over five years, and I’ve never been back on the pill.

If you don’t know the story, just know this–although it wasn’t a difficult decision, we came to adoption after a few appointments with a fertility specialist.  We didn’t go into great depth at these appointments and, really, just found out that getting me pregnant would be difficult.  We were never given any odds, but after a month or two of Clomid, IUI was in our plan.

All of that prodding and running an hour each way to the doctor every time I needed some blood drawn or, gasp, insemination (makes me think of my parents’ poor cows every single time I think of it), turned us off to the idea.  Adoption was for us.

Fast forward a few years to our lives with a 10-month-old. T isn’t necessarily sure he wants to adopt again, and J is at the age where I completely understand why experienced mothers thought I was nuts for talking about another adoption even as I was holding a then three-month-old J in my arms.

And…if J is to have a sibling, I’d really rather they were both African-American and adopted–they’d be able to share that experience and have an immediate family member to talk to about it who understood better than anyone else could.

So, maybe we should do something about birth control despite the fact that it’s highly unlikely that I’d get pregnant, and I wonder–am I the only adoptive mom with infertility issues who’s let this slide?

It’s after 9, and as usual it feels like my brain slipped out of my ear without me noticing sometime after J went to bed.  It’s that tiny.  Since I’ve lost my mind, I might as well bore you with details of my day, much like all of my family does to each other in our inane emails to each other.  Many emails detail an entire day like this:  “After breakfast, I swept the floor and then I called mom…”  It goes on and on and on.  Aren’t you excited to read my list?

1. There’s nothing like waking up to that constant ache in that useless part of my anatomy–and I’m lucky enough to also feel like I need to use the bathroom in an uncomfortable way for most of the duration of my period.  Now that I no longer chart, it’s always a surprise.  Joys.
2. J doesn’t seem to want to lose sight of me, so as I prepare us to leave for another trek to school, he sits in the crib and screams.  At the TOP OF HIS LUNGS.  JUST LIKE THIS.  What happened to the eyeliner, the only makeup I bother to wear?  Very odd.  I look a little like a one-eyed raccoon.
3. J helps me draw out what should have been a 30 minute stop at school to a 2-hour stop.  Much crawling, cruising and electrical cord adoration punctuated the SCREAMING session that highlighted my attempts to sit down and write up some assignments.  At the end of it all, I have cramps, rugburn and a headache.
4. My husband and I discuss Jim Rome.  I think he’s a hottie.  T’s got an opinion, too, but I’ve been forbidden to share.  It would have been really funny, but I’ve been censored.
5. J teaches me to catch him as he rolls off the couch, giggling, and then toss him back up to repeat the process all again.  Roll off.  Giggle maniacally. Get tossed back on the couch.  Roll.  Giggle.  Get tossed.
6. I begin to chant my daily “How big is J?  So Big!” and toss my hands in the air.  If my 21-year-old self could have seen me, she’d have turned to her friends and called me an idiot.  I don’t care–I’m past cool.  I’m a mom.  He finally caught on and did it by himself, after weeks of practice.  I feel like he’s won the Olympics.  I tried to get a picture to prove it, but by then he was gnawing on his plastic baby Tonka truck.  Plastic.  Wasn’t I going to only allow wood toys?  That’s another post all together.

Somewhere in there we did some clapping, or something that might pass for clapping as long as it’s a 10-month-old baby doing it.  Oh, and the crawling and the scaling small boxes, falling in and getting stuck.   All in all, I feel like there’s been progress, but I imagine that’s a given when you start off the day wanting never get out of bed but end it up with the suddenly-not-cranky, sweetest kid I know.