Cake or Death, or Why I Love My Daughter

Recently, I've noticed that my blogs have been focused much more on Kalel and Lucien. It makes sense, with Deirdre being in school all day, but I did feel a little bad about it. Just yesterday, I kind of had it in the back of my mind to do a post on all the various little bizarre anecdotes from her new life as a Girl in Pursuit of Education - it was on the old mental to-do list.

I needn't have bothered pondering What to Write About Deirdre. Girl Wonder never lets us down, for long, and WOWZER, has she been on a roll, in the past 36hrs.

So, before I even start...thank you, my eldest, weirdest daughter, for doing the work, for me. Thank you, for reminding me that no matter how dumb your brother, or how wicked your sister, you have been and always will be my Most Bloggable Child.


It all started, yesterday evening. After we went over her homework together, Deirdre settled down to draw a hieroglyphic letter, for one of her friends (whom she actually has only met once, three years ago, but you know...she's 5; everyone she sees is her "bestfriend"). I left her in the dining room, with the much-coveted Mommy's Markers, and came back into the den, in hopes of finally getting a little respite from the usual Crazy.
Not too long after, Deirdre came in here to ask "how many days" 'til my next birthday, having been vaguely aware that her mother had aged yet again, last month. I told her it was a long-long-time, nearly a year, and when she then informed me that she was going to make me a cake, ALL BY HERSELF, I just nodded, said that was nice, and didn't give it a second thought. Naturally, I assumed the five year old who cannot reach anything and has never so much as used the microwave, was about to go draw me a cake - "make" and draw often mean the same, to her. And anyway, Deirdre is always full of shit; she's constantly making nutty proclamations like "I am Moses" or "I'm going to go see my friend and have her party and give her presents and we'll love each other forever, in ONE days," or even "I'm going to freeze that monster with how I shoot ice like this - shhhhhhhh! - an then I'll EAT HIM like a popsicle."

You get the picture. Five year olds are crazy and pathological liars and not to be believed.

So, I approved this idea, patted her head, and fully expected to be interrupted in ten minutes or so, with an invisible cake, or a picture of cake (I've been given lots), or maybe even plastic blocks in the shape of a cake. When she did not reappear in the next 10-15min, I wondered, but still didn't give it much thought; I just went to look for her, to remind her that the dinner hour was approaching, and make sure she wasn't eating her newly-finished homework, or some such nonsense.

I found her in the kitchen. Standing on a chair that she'd taken from the dining room. Stirring with a spoon she'd found in a drawer (and that I'd actually never even seen before). Stirring something that she'd put in my God-Almighty-Huge casserole dish - the one I pull out, when I have a need to feed a small army...or Peyton, twice. She'd carried that heavy glass casserole over to the counter, and up a chair.
There was no mess - or at least, no mess that she had made. There was just a tiny girl, calmly and cheerfully making her mother a cake, as if she had done it a hundred times, before. But when I saw what was in the casserole dish, I spun around on one heel, took off after my camera, and immediately began Blogging It In My Head.

I asked her to show me what she had put in my "birthday cake," one ingredient at a time:

Froot Loops, in a nod to the stereotypical KidFood (Deirdre rarely eats them)

And eggs? "Oh, Deirdre...you did not put EGGS in there!" Deirdre has never handled, much less cracked, a raw egg, so I found this difficult to believe.

By this point, Lucien had appeared, playing the role of Secondary Pointer. Here, Deirdre is telling me that she also used strawberry yogurt and Cool-Whip. Again, foods she does not eat, which made them seem unlikely candidates for her recipe.

But checking the garbage...I'll be damned. She DID use yogurt and an egg. I go back for a more Serious Look at that "cake." Meanwhile, Deirdre is far from done, and I am THRILLED to let her run with this, sensing a Legendary Tale, in the making.

And here, is your first good look at The Horror in the Casserole.

Daddy's Heath toffee syrup, because she thinks it's chocolate. I intervene, briefly, when she next suggests using the last of Daddy's Vanilla Chai Spice Coffeemate, then return to my position of Gawker and Non-Authority Figure.

But what else do we need, for a really GREAT cake?

Why, PEPPERONI, of course! In Deirdre's world, it goes with everything.

Now, more eggs, and would you look at her? Perfectly cracking, without a scrap of shell - she, herself, could not explain how she had learned this skill.

But something's missing....

Nutella! The chocolatey hazelnut spread is PERFECT with a pepperoni/frootloop/toffee/coolwhip-laced egg and yogurt base!

Add a dash of salt, and she's done! Or at least, add a dash of salt, and then insist that it needs to be "bigger," at which point, your mother begins lying her ass off. I reassured her that it was the Magic of Baking that made cakes "bigger," and that this was GREAT, just the way it was - too many flavors would just overwhelm the delicate balance she had already attained.

All the while, my mind is racing, wondering "How the hell do I get out of THIS ONE? Shall I "save it for when Daddy gets home," then hope to distract her until after bedtime, at which point we can claim we ate it while she slept? And then...

Eureka.

We proceeded on to Baking, in an oven specifically adjusted for such a culinary masterpiece, which translates to "Preheat, at 100 degrees." Also known as "a great temperature in which to grow bacteria."

Random Glum Face - she was actually still quite thrilled over her mastery of cooking.

I began Project Lie, and reminded her that cakes take a LOOONG time, to bake - many, many hours, and sometimes even all night. This lie found fertile ground, as I prompted her to recall how many times she'd seen me up very late at night, making birthday cakes. She doesn't know the difference between "up all night baking" and "up all night making apx. 738 different shades of custom-tinted frosting," so it made sense, to her.

I also made sure she understood that "Cakes look different when they finally, finally get done. All the colors of stuff you put in melt and blend together, and the cake gets MUCH bigger; it even tastes different."

Remember: I are a genius, and just as Deirdre uses her gifts in Strange and Terrible Creative Ways, I, too, have a Special Way of using my own gifts. It's called Lying.
Forced to wait for her cake to cook, she turned her attention to my birthday gift, or rather, its wrapping, which seemed the only important part (like mother, like daughter).

This child never picked up a pair of scissors, until she started school, last month, and she has certainly never touched real *adult* scissors. Yet here she is, without a moment's hesitation.

And now glue, as Scotch tape proved too annoying for her. Later, she moved on to my heavy clear packing tape. Looks like there's something in that paper, doesn't it? Nope; still just wrapping air.

Though she seemed to be doing well, for a time, eventually, the Green Paper of Doom thwarted her best efforts, and she switched to Stripey Masculine Paper of Slightly Less Doom.
This was taken this morning, right before the bus came - Success!

THIS time, there really IS something in there. Although I have been told that it is NOT my birthday, and that Deirdre will tell me when it's my birthday, I cheated as soon as she got on the bus, and looked inside an opening in her wrapping paper-envelope.
OMG! I GOT CHICKEN LITTLE! THE EXTRA-HAWT BIENVILLE PARISH PUBLIC LIBRARY DVD VERSION THAT PEYTON CHECKED OUT YESTERDAY! SCREW YOU, LIBRARY; IT IS MINE, NOW!
Don't worry; I'll still act surprised. ;D

"But What About the CAKE??!" you may be asking. Indeed...what about it?

It looks fine, to me.
After a nice night of baking, it turned out just as I predicted - evenly colored, much bigger, and totally Cake-like. Deirdre was thrilled to see how well it had turned out, and assured me I would love it. Actually, I think she said "Loves it," considering the fact that she asked me "Do you love it?" quite a few times, the night before, while making the cake - apparently she's groovin' on some kind of Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie vibe.

What?

Ohhhhh...I get it; I know what you want to hear.
Okay, so here's the deal: Once Deirdre was finally distracted with dinner, I sent Peyton a text, asking him to swing by and pick up a few things from Walmart, on his way home. Meanwhile, Deirdre's cake was still in the oven, when she went to bed, as I'd promised her that we'd take it out for her, when it was "done."
I had already asked her what this cake was going to taste like, and she assured me that the yogurt and Nutella would make it taste like strawberries and chocolate - that sounded like a plan, to me! Once she was down for the count, I sprung into action, scraping out that Abomination Casserole into the trash, and making Peyton take the evidence out to the garbage cans.
But first, of course, I took a picture:

Mmmm. Who says you have to choose, between Cake or Death?

Once the Official Food of the Church of Satan was out of the way, I whipped up a fast swirly mix of strawberry and chocolate cake batter, in the same (sanitized and prayed over) casserole dish, then sprinkled in some chocolate chips, for a chunkier effect. It actually looked pretty gnarly, as I'd spiked the strawberry batter with a hint of pink paste food color, so it was bright pink and brown swirled. Once it cooled, I melted chocolate frosting and sealed it in a thin layer (cause of course, that's the Nutella!).

I did worry, for a moment, that she might not buy the switch - she's a REALLY bright kid, and observant as hell. However, her self-esteem is such that it actually does make sense to her that whatever she throws in a pan will just naturally turn into a perfect cake - this is a child who is almost completely without insecurity, fear, or self-doubt.
She bought it hook, line, and sinker. ;D

So here I am, Bad Mommy Extraordinaire, having pulled off a Grand Lie that has boosted my child's already unnaturally high self-esteem, and brought Wonder and Joy into her little life.
Know what I call that? CASH IN THE BANK. Yessirree, I have just bought myself one helluva lot of Good Mommy Karma, which means I can totally read her diary, when she's older, and not go to Hell, even a little bit.

Happy Late Birthday, to me.