"Let Them Frost Something Else!"

Peawhistle is watching SpongeBob, per usual. She's singing the opening theme song as "SpongeBob HotPants." Now THAT I'd like to see.

Speaking of SpongeBob.... Cakes! Yes, cakes. Now, if I had to guess, my most popular post to date is the Dora Cake post. (Don't agree? Send those disagreements to abbysspamfolder@gmail.com.) Anyway, if everyone learned anything from that post, it's that I suck.

This is a redemption post. For years I forced my mother to make my kids' birthday cakes so those kids wouldn't require therapy when they saw photos of them years from now. But when Peawhistle turned five, I decided to finally decorate a cake of my own. Now, if you recall I'm also sucky when it comes to drawing/artisty in general. However, over the years I've become much better about at least copying characters onto paper, or at least good enough so that PW thinks I'm awesome at it. So given her love affair with WALL-E (and seriously, who doesn't have a love affair with that guy?), I decided to make her a WALL-E cake. I drew it free-hand while looking at the DVD cover art. Trust me, the leaf looked better in person; the angle is making it look like mildew right there. Also, forgive the fact that I forgot to make his treads 3-D and just pay attention to the fact that you can at least tell what it was supposed to be over all.

Meh, it did the trick anyway. Motivated by my quasi-success, I decided to do Peanut's cake this year as well. And there is nothing in this world that Peanut loves more than SpongeBob. I chose to do a mixture of frosting and fondant, despite my utmost hatred for that crap. It was my first time working with fondant and if I had it to do all over again (yeah, I can really see that happening), I would have ignored their advice to roll it 1/4" thick and gone much, much thinner. And I wouldn't have hosed up the fricking eyelashes so much. But by and large, I think it turned out fairly well.

As Peawhistle pointed out repeatedly, he has no holes. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that would have hosed up the entire thing, so I'm glad I didn't. I also should have put the eyes closer together, but oh well. As for what is fondant, his eyes, teeth, nose, shirt, sleeves, arms, pant legs, legs, socks, and shoes. The shoes I had to paint using black frosting, which sucked for lightyears, but they turned out well. What sucked more was frosting the pant legs. I'm fairly certain now fondant wasn't ever meant to be frosted. That crap is slicker than snot.

Given this, I'm perplexed by the Dora Fiasco. It was clearly not the fault of Stephanie, but I must have some frosting ability somewhere, right? Apparently neither of us was ever meant to work in tandem. But I'll go ahead and blame her for it anyway.

So for all of you named Vann who laughed at the very IDEA of me frosting something other than a complete disaster, I DEMAND THAT YOU APOLOGIZE IMMEDIATELY. In cookies.

We Are Good Friends Now

If you recall (and by you, I mean none of you, apparently), I love me some catalogs! I still get enough catalogs to choke a horse, and I still read through all of them. Boy howdy, am I glad I do! Let me refer you to one catalog in particular. "Toys to Grow On" is full of toys that supposedly make your kid a genius. (Honestly parents, toys aren't going to keep your kid from being an idiot. I know this for a fact.) Anyway, the last time I got a catalog from these jerks I flipped through it, only to end up thoroughly delighted at what I'd found. There is a roll of paper called a "Create-A-Story Paper Center." Your budding author draws pictures on the top half of the roll of paper and writes his genius on the lower half. Fine idea (in some cases anyway). They have an example written and drawn of just what your little future MENSA offspring mayhaps could create. The story they've written goes like so: "A rabbit stole a carrot out of our garden, so I took a piano out of the rabbit's house. We are good friends now." No, I am most certainly NOT kidding. Where to start, where to start? First of all, props to the jerks who drew the accompanying picture of a rabbit holding a carrot while a kid barrels across a meadow hauling a piano. Good show.

Now, to the text. So, so many questions. I'll narrow them down to the most pressing: what the hell have you been teaching your children? Exaggerated retribution is the key to achieving lifelong friendship? OK, fine. Two can play at this.

"The next-door neighbor scratched the paint on my car, so I filled his house with scorpions. We're vacationing together next spring."

"A hobo begged for spare change, so I set him on fire. We're running together in the next election."

"Our dog peed in my shoe, so I chopped off his leg. We love each other so much."

"My teacher gave me a C on my last paper, so I turned her into the FBI for domestic terrorism. I'm testifying on her behalf tomorrow."

"Tommy teased me at recess today, so I heinously murdered his family and framed him for it. We're marrying right before he's hanged for it."

You get the gist. Essentially, these people think kids are certifiably insane. Now, some are, don't get me wrong. I've met more than my share I think. But all? And advertising those crazy children's innermost thoughts about the strange and complicated workings of society's norms? Eh. No.

I've Got a Lot of Collecting to Do!

So apparently Barbie.com will be allowing commoners to vote for which career Barbie should have next. Barbie has been many a thing in her many years--most of them slutty. But I have a few items I'd like to see covered when voting time comes around. This means I expect you to submit them.

1) Civil War Re-enactor Barbie

2) GED Barbie

3) White Supremacist Barbie (with Skinhead Ken)

4) Homeless Barbie

5) Stalker Barbie

6) Dungeons and Dragons Player Barbie

7) "Ho's 'n' Bitches" Barbie (with Pimp Daddy Ken)

8) Tourette Syndrome Barbie

9) Meth Barbie

10) Telemarketer Barbie

11) Polygamist Sect Barbie

12) Glenn Beck Barbie

Get on that.

A Peanut Won't Eat

I know you've been losing sleep, wondering how Peanut is doing, so here we go (yet again). You knew that he couldn't chew food, right? I told you that, yes? I'm sure I did. So anyway, since the boy is over two and is still eating baby food out of jars, several doctors decided he needed intervention (not that kind; the alcoholic intervention will come later). So after months and months of hating on the insurance company, he got approved to go to Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital. This is a fairly well-known hospital in Baltimore that was started in 1922 with the sole purpose of treating children with severe medical disorders. They have a feeding clinic as part of it for kids just like Peanut. Most of the kids in the feeding clinic are kids who have been on a feeding tube their whole lives and are just now figuring out solid foods for the first time. A few are like Peanut, who have food phobias due to various factors, usually severe food allergies like he has. Six doctors observed Peanut in various rooms/environments and/or a live-feed video. They finally concluded that he likely has all the tools he needs, he just doesn't choose to use them. Great. Maybe now when I tell people that he is so fricking stubborn he would rather starve himself to death than eat something he doesn't want to, they'll believe me. He literally will starve himself. And when I say literally, I mean it the right way, not the way stupid people use it.

So the good news is that they think over the course of several months they'll be able to coax him into chewing something. He'll have to go once a week every week for possibly up to a year or more, but they're fairly confident it'll happen. The bad news is that the doctor in charge of this whole feeding clinic team of folks says that Peanut has the most severe food allergies he's ever seen in his career. Mind you, this is a doctor who works in a hospital designed to treat seriously medically-hosed up kids. SO COMFORTING. So given that he's on that end of the spectrum, who knows how long it'll take to get him to eat. He still gets most of his calories from the hypoallergenic formula they put him on after his hospital stay when he was six months old. They've tried to switch him to other things designed for kids his age (because they need more calories than the formula has to offer) and he refuses to switch. Refuses to the point of simply stopping eating until we switch him back. He's skin and bones already so they said no more trying to force a change for now.

I mean, can you believe the sheer STUBBORNNESS of this child?? What the frick is with my kids anyway?

So, you know, if you'd like to pray for little Peanut or just send good thoughts his way, they'd all be greatly appreciated. Fricking kid....

Because You Want It....

Yeah.