Camryn's Crayon Cookies

Today Camryn asked me if she could make cookies. I had someone over and was getting tired of being interrupted every two minutes so I told her she could. She got out the "Great American Cookie" cookbook (the one full of pictures) and decided on "Crayon Cookies." Aside from asking me how many cubes of butter it took to make a cup and how to fill a pastry bag with chocolate, she did the entire process by herself-- Kitchenaid mixer and all. She added the ingredients, mixed the dough, divided it into 8 different bowls (so she could make it 8 different colors like the recipe said), rolled it out and shaped it like crayons, melted chocolate (to use to draw the "wrappers") and decorated them. At one point she asked me to do the chocolate decorating for her, but we quickly found that she was just as good or better at it than I was. 

Here is a picture of her fantastic work: (Blurry pictures courtesy of my cell-phone camera... the cord to charge my regular camera is still missing).

Camryn's Awesome Crayon Cookies

In the midst of all her fabulous initiative and creativity, she neglected to attend to the clean-up part of the project. Our kitchen looks like it was hit by a major hurricane. I guess on tomorrow's docket is "How to clean up from making cookies." Still, not too bad for an eight-year-old.

Personality Flaws

[Another unfinished blog draft found in my blogger draft folder.]

If you ever get in a conversation with people about personality flaws you know that there are some things that are universally acknowledged as being negative. Things like being violent, abusive or excessive knowledge of Star Trek trivia. And then there are those "personality flaws" that people admit to but in a "Yeah, I say it like it's a fault, I'm actually kind of proud of it," sort of way. The kind when people "admit" to it and you outwardly nod your head sympathetically but internally secretly think, "Sheesh, I wish THAT was the worst of my problems." Like when someone admits that they are "OCD," but in a "See, I'm OCD so I could never be as absent-minded or disorganized as you are or have my house as messy as yours. But I'm not judging-- I'm just OCD." We say it's bad but then wear it like a badge of honor.

I have one of those. Yes the dreaded P-word.... perfectionism. Yes, one of those annoying people who admits, "Yeah, I'm a perfectionist," so you can internally think, "Yeah, poor baby. I wish my problem was being too perfect." And honestly, I've worn it like a badge of honor for most of my life. C'mon, we say it's a fault but how harmful can it be to continuously strive to be better.

The World Revolves Around... the Potty

I haven't posted in a while. I'm recovering really well from my deviated septum surgery, despite a really scary drug interaction the Friday night after the surgery. For all of you who want to know but don't have the nerve to ask, no, I did not get a nose job along with my septoplasty. I have the same old pointy schnoz that I've always had. Darn. (Besides, if I was going to undergo the knife, I can think of some body parts that would get much higher priority than my nose. If I wasn't morally opposed to cosmetic surgery.) But I digress. My mom just left on Monday after being here for three weeks. She was able to help with the surgery, help me organize our junk room into a play room and generally make my life awesomer. It was fabulous. I'm having serious withdrawal now that I'm having to be a responsible adult again. :(

We (meaning my mom) started potty-training Jackson while she was here. He is plenty old enough at 3 1/2 , but I'm not nearly old enough. Or maybe I'm too old. At any rate, I don't do poop and this is killing me. He's got the pee-pee thing down pretty well, but this sitting-on-the-potty-for-an-hour-and-then-pooping-in-your-underwear thing is getting old. Really, really old. Maybe those in the 7th circle of hell are really just condemned to an eternity of perpetual potty-training. (Deep breath.) I can survive this. Really. I can.