How to make a chocolate cake.

Cass is feeling unloved. I swear I don't know how children talk themselves into these things. I figured she needed some time doing something she really likes with me as I've completely ruined her holiday by limiting her t.v time, her computer time & then insisting she both read & do her music practise! What was I thinking?!

Anyway, she has been agitating to cook chocolate cake for weeks. This apparently simple request was complicated by the fact Theo took my no~fail cookbook to school one day (yes, I know that was years ago!) & it never came home & the fact Cass' book has mysteriously ended up with all it's pages glued shut. I'm not even asking!

So we go on line & come up with a 'to die for' chocolate cake. The only thing we don't have in the cupboards is the dark chocolate. No problemo. I prepare Liddy her lunch & we plan to buy the chocolate when we take her lunch up. I'm a little uptight as it's not a recipe I know & I've not had heaps of success with these sorts of recipes but both Cass & I can read, right? I figure we can follow simple directions without too much trouble.

We walk into the store & the boss' son swarms all over Cass & announces he's coming to our house to paint. Really? Not without mummy's say so, bucko. He tells us mummy says yes. I love these ones. I can just see me walking out of the store with a child I don't own on child's say so. Thankfully mum then appears to be floored by her son's request & also highly embarrassed. I understand that. On the other hand I figure it's not much fun for the kiddo to spend his holidays at the shop. So we come home with chocolate & an extra child.

Cass gets down her minature project to show him. (yes, all right! I'll post some piccies given an eon or two to get my act together in.) This is a built to 1/12th scale model of a toyshop & the ladies have all spoilt Cass outrageously by contributing to it, to the point it has a workable light & a perspex front. Cass has made the shop & nearly all the toys. Our visitor was fascinated & treated everything very gently. I'm not a minatures person but Paul Bishop ( a t.v. celebrity Cass worked with during choir) had a longish chat with her about how the skills she was learning in minatures were the same ones used in set designing but the amount of mess it generates is phenomenal! Another post all on it's own.

Anyway we leave the boy running the tiny train around the roof of the toy shop & proceed to make cake. Cass is not good with directions; impatience is a major drawback & I'm already trying to melt chocolate in the double boiler we don't have. (yes, you read that right.) Does she have to put in the whole of all 4 eggs? Does it say to separate them? Well, then, put in the whole egg. Honestly. At which point we acquire the extra child. Cass is great. She props him on the stool & proceeds to read the directions to him & he puts everything in the mixer. Cass has it on high so the poor kid is half suffocated, chocking on cocoa dust. He promptly turns from very fair to a darkish shade of brown. The cat arrives because, hey, everyone's in the kitchen. I eye the 10 or so steps between the stove & the mixer with some trepidation. I have a panful of melted chocolate that needs folding into the mixture. Cass grabs the cat & tells our visitor to sit very still. He wants to do the folding. (about here I need an eye roll emoticon) We negotiate ~ very carefully. Giving my own child 3rd degree burns I can cope with; someone else's is another matter entirely! I've never been so pleased to see a cake go in the oven!

I turn round thinking about cleaning up to find paintbrushes & jars of water have now joined the pots & bowls & opened jars on my bench & painting is in progress. Both children have scraped the bowls & beaters so have effectively had chocolate for lunch.

The cake was beautiiiful. We returned the child to its owner covered in chocolate, paint & red dirt from the garden & much happier. I meditated on the unusual ways God invites us to minister to others.

Our house is not the tidiest around & if you've been reading this blog for a while my lack of organization probably boggles your mind but I remind myself these days of a friend whose children I minded while he dealt with a court case. It was a custody issue & dragged on & on so he sent his 2 kids elsewhere one day to give me a break. He only did it once & offended the other woman terribly because she'd been in my house & was not impressed! 'But,' this man protested, 'when I leave my kids with you & arrive to collect them all the kids are in the yard after dark screaming their heads off, unwashed, unfed & beside themselves. I leave them with Jeannie & when I arrive they're washed, fed, have stuff to show me that they've made & lots to tell that they've done. I don't care if Jeannie hasn't swept her floor & I bet the kids don't either.' Now I like a neat & tidy house as much as the next person but I am much more likely to put people before appearances, which may be why I get a ministry of chocolate cake & poster paints!

Hold the cat!

Aaargh! I knew spring was here! Last night...midnight... & Theo hisses up the stairs, trying to be quiet, 'Mum! Mum! Hold the cat!'

Good quetion.

I stumble out of bed & down the stairs. The cat does not want to be held. He is a most unhappy puss & squirming to be let loose. Theo arms himself with a broom & I hear all the furniture downstairs being moved around. It is only a matter of time before Cass surfaces. More bellowing for mum. I plonk the cat in our bedroom feeling much better being where I can see what's going on than listening anxiously as Theo lunges round the lounge room after a snake that very definitely does not want to be caught. Cass, who does not like snakes, needs her light on for reassurance.

Definitely no paddling through the house at night without the lights on ~ & no, Theo didn't catch the snake. It sensibly found some hole to slither through & will be well gone by now.

Aaargh!

And what was Theo doing up at midnight? Well, he slammed his hand in the car door on Sunday requiring a trip to the doctor's to have two nails punctured to release the pressure behind them & his hand has been unusable for several days. He will lose the nails. I can only imagine he was on a Panadol hunt when he nearly stepped on the snake. He doesn't like snakes either. So why was he trying to catch it? Good question.

The heart of a home?

I'm used to being invisible. You know, Mrs Nobody who magically makes sure every one has clean socks & undies, keeps track of who needs to be where when, puts food on the table, feeds the cat, has spare cash for the boat, knows where that all important document got abandoned, & will roll out of bed at 1 am so you & your mates don't have to stumble home in the dark. It comes with the territory once you have kids.

So I'm out of the house for a week & I expect to find the washing up piling up till we run out of plates, the laundry steadily growing from a molehill to a mountain, the cat in meltdown & psychotic puddles, while I wade Cass to & fro through oceans of mud & torrential downpours so she can shine, however briefly & brightly. The day Liddy realised that absolutely no~one was going to be home to drive her to work, let alone bring her lunch on the dot of one thirty, & that she would have to be very grown up & responsible & sort herself out I expected her wails of outrage, poor abandoned orphan. What was completely unexpected where the solicitious enquiries she got. Is everyone well? How is your family?

Liddy is not without her own ironic sense of humour & comic timing. 'Well, Dino's at sea, I haven't seen Theo since Sunday, Cass in a week & mum in 3 days but dad & I are doing just fine.' The things people notice while we're busy living our lives! And didn't work pay her out about her lunches not arriving! Yet these same adults ring me when there is a work party to assure me that they are being responsible & keeping an eye on Liddy when Liddy knows perfectly well we're only a phone call away ; she has only to ring if she's at all uncomfortable or just had enough.

No~one has said anything but an almost audible sigh of relief has gone through my house this week. All's well: there are dishes in the rack, mugs on their hooks, clothes folded & the cat's stopped attacking everyone; mum's back at the helm. So nice to know I'm missed.

Earth to Cass...earth to Cass...

I do not function well on 4 hours sleep ~ which is all I got between performances & it will be some time before Cass comes back to earth ~ but she has been so good with all the travelling & the endless sitting still & quiet for the sound & lighting technos. She has loved everything about theatre ~ no surprises there! And what little girl wouldn't prefer the glitz & glamour to dull old school work? I am already being squeezed for her to continue with the choir ensemble. She has got her father on side but he doesn't leave the island. It will be me doing all the running around. OK, so I like it too. I am just a little wary of the whole 'drama, drama, drama' thing & Cass has stars in her eyes.

Cass has learnt so much from doing a professional performance ~ & I am still giggling having sat through endless rehearsals until even my dull brain picked up that the sopranos were having trouble with their counting; so I heard the sopranos falter in Honour the Earth & that their counting was wrong. 'It was sooo scarey,' Cass confessed. 'A~ (the choir master) just glared at us & lots of people stopped singing! Not me. I counted right. We are so dead!' Eye roll.

She is going to really miss the weekly rehearsals & there is all the catching up to do with her school work but I have promised we'll now do the community band, more professional than the school one, & that she can do this again next year regardless of whether or not she is allowed to join the ensemble full time. I think I will lose that battle, though if I am lucky not till next year. Over the next few days, as we settle back into our regular rountine & things return to as calm as they ever are around here, I am sure things will spring to mind that I will want to remember & blog about. Just now all I can think about is how exhausted I am & that anyone who does this for a living is completely & utterly insane!