Boo!

Happy Halloween!

The Endorsement

Pay particular attention to what General Powell has to say about Muslims in the United States. Finally, a powerful figure in American politics says what badly, badly needed to be said.

Choosing to Read

"[T]here's lots of ways to be entertained, and a good many of them are more gratifying and appealing, at least at first, than sitting down and reading a book. Therefore, if you choose to read a book today, it's not like a hundred years ago, when that was your only option. Today, when you read a book, you're making a conscious decision not to play a video game, not to surf the web, not to watch a movie, not to turn on the TV." -- Neal Stephenson

If you're in a reading mood, pick up Anathem.

The Latest Cake

Suddenly this a cake blog. All cakes, all the time!

Here's my latest attempt at cake decoration:

For Libby's second birthday, a cake to match her bedroom.

It's not perfect by any means, but I'm reasonably pleased with it. And the almond cake and raspberry buttercream frosting were pretty decent.

Cake Wreck

Oh, my. I took that fancy-dancy cake decorating class, and then I thought to myself, "Yes! I can decorate cakes! Fanciful cakes! Dramatic cakes! Cakes that defy reason and gravity!"

Well.

I have some practicing to do. You see, I've been commissioned to create Libby's second-birthday cake, and Miss Libby should be extremely glad that today's experimental cake was not for her. (It was instead for Jan, Airan's mom, who is in town for a few days and who is very kind when it comes to extremely ugly belated-birthday cakes.)

I learned a few important lessons from this little exercise. 1) There's a reason you don't see many tall, narrow birthday cakes. 2) Firm, smooth buttercream frosting makes an excellent base layer before applying your fondant. Squishy, marshmallowy frosting -- not so much.

I strategically placed cupcakes around it to draw the eye away from the cracking, lumpy, buckling fondant, but there's only so much a few cupcakes can do. (Also, I want to mention that the twins helped me place the flowers on the cupcakes, which explains why they look like they were thrown on by a couple of three-year-olds. I'm not above blaming at least some of the decoration flaws on my children.)


Fondant disaster.


Much to my amazment, the cake did not collapse when sliced. So I guess it's more structurally sound than it looks.

This is what they mean by trial and error. Stress the error. But at least it tastes good! (Whenever I watch Ace of Cakes or those wacky cake-decorating contests on the Food Network, I always wonder what the cakes taste like. Sure, they're gorgeous, but who cares what they look like if they taste like cardboard??)

Future cakes will benefit from today's setbacks. But I'm frightened to find out how many more cake wrecks I'll have to make before I get good at this.

National Punctuation Day

To observe National Punctuation Day, let me remind you of the importance of the serial comma.

Happy Birthday Heather!

Happy birthday to our favorite supplier of costume wear.

Come Again?

Suddenly, from nowhere, Evie has a stutter. I started to notice it two days ago. Yesterday, it became more pronounced. Today, it could not be ignored. Simple phrases she's said a million times now take ages to spit out. Broken-record consonants come in an endless stream while she struggles to put words and sentences together. Luckily, Evie doesn't seem to notice or care; she just plugs away at those words until they finally come out right.

Her father has a much more sensible attitude about this than I do -- he rightly asserts that this is not cause for serious concern. But my heart breaks every time it takes her ten seconds to say "I" or "D-d-d-d-d-d-don't ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chase me, tickle monster!" (said with much giggling, which doesn't help the stutter).

I've been reading up on this. I know how to react, which is to not react. I know how to model calm, slow, unhurried speech patterns for her, which gives me a chance to channel my inner Mr. Rogers. I know to give her my undivided attention when she speaks to me so she doesn't feel like she's fighting both my ears and her tongue. And I think I'm doing these things.

But I know full well that I haven't been a shining example up until now. It's taken this little episode to shine a light on the fact that I usually listen to the girls with half an ear, if that. I generally tear through words as quickly as I can spit them out -- time is precious, people! Let's not waste it with casual conversation. Until today, I've been doing a bang-up job of teaching the girls that speech is for quick communication -- get those words out as fast as you can and hope someone is listening. And good luck.

Those of you who are familiar with my parenting style won't be surprised to learn that this is yet another opportunity for me to feel a great deal of guilt about what a terrible mom I am, forcing my poor child to stutter just to get me to pay attention to her. And no, I don't really think I'm a terrible mom (room for improvement, sure, but not terrible). But I do think I've contributed to this sudden bout of stuttering.

I want to wallow in my remorse for a while, reflecting on my many parenting flaws and analyzing the many ways I could improve my communication skills. But now is the time for positive action. I'm going to be the best, calmest, least rushed speaker on the block. And I'm going to stop making such a big deal about this. If Evie doesn't care, why should I?

Yarrrr, Mateys

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Mother Knows Best

My mom tells it like it is.