jools (also a beloved child) – Page 8

Category: jools (also a beloved child)

every day is a winding road

Posted on September 2, 2008 by wrekehavoc

that tear in my eye isn’t because my car currently smells like the sour milk sea (thanks to jools’ spilling an entire bottle of nestle quik nearly two weeks ago). it’s not because my poor BS is suffering from a horrible sore throat (which does sadden me, of course, to a point.) nope.

kindergarten starts today.

my little boy is starting kindergarten. he was initially skeptical of the event, belligerently fighting against any attempts to introduce him to the place. but one of the silver linings of last week’s vacation misadventure was the fact that we returned home in time for the school’s meet your teacher event. jools complained at first bitterly about having to attend this; but with some coaxing from BC (school is SO FUN! she cooed to her brother. boy, i owe her big time), he went.

at first, mister man was not interested in his lovely teacher or teaching assistant. we walked around the room, admiring the displays, finding the little tiny bathroom, and picking up important mountains of paperwork. BC then became antsy to meet her teacher, so i left jools and BS in kindergarten, hoping for the best.

when i returned, the boys were sitting in the reading corner. jools doesn’t read yet, but he loves books. and when he saw an entire collection of early reader I Spy books in the reading nook, well, love comes to everyone, you know? the boy would. not. leave. in fact, we closed the place.

i LIKE kindergarten, the boy announced. when does school start???

[insert hallelujah chorus here.]

for me, while this means both kids are in school together, it also means that i am now a full-time, stay at home mom. i have to go full-tilt in homework land. i’ll probably be volunteering a bit more. and i have those kids otherwise, 24/7. i’ll need to hone my skills in time management, project management, people management. and the mom mobile, which currently smells foul, will probably smell even worse after all sorts of things, edible or otherwise, have been dropped, forgotten, or left for dead on the floor.

i’m excited. i’m nervous. i’m thinking about ear plugs.

i suspect the TV and the computer will need to be regulated a bit more now. i suspect the two kids who fight over air will fight that. much. more. i wonder when i’ll resort to charts for keeping track of everything. it wasn’t where i saw myself 10 years ago, but it’s my reality now, a reality i know some might actually give their eye-teeth for. (note to self: must look up the word eye-teeth before hellboy decides to attempt to somehow develop a new, realistic concept of the term on his own, with potentially violent — or vile — results.) i’m so used to having only one kid 24/7 at a time. now, it’s time to do the two-kid shuffle. if my mom worked and juggled three kids, surely i can hack two, right?

i just hope i remember to stop, take a breath sometimes, and enjoy it.

i've returned

Posted on August 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

and thousands yawned, i’m sure.

but part two of the salvage-the-doomed-disney-vacation-debacle is a little happier than part one is. mostly.

we decided to go downee oshun hon. (translated for those of you who can’t talk like a baltimoron, we went to ocean city, md.) we had only been to ocean city once before, in a post-baby-birth haze that took us to a giant hotel with an ice skating rink (sans zamboni) inside of it. i don’t remember a lot of it (jools was maybe four months old, so my eyes didn’t exactly yet follow motion at this stage) beyond taking BC on the lumpy ice rink and attempting a beach moment while jools was stashed in a little baby tent. the rest is a blur.

what the hell, we figured. let’s give it another try.

BS put it best: ocean city is like atlantic city before the casinos (and with less poverty and presumably less governmental corruption, i would add.) the boardwalk is small. the clientele is not exactly the most upwardly-mobile. the restaurants are overpriced, mostly continental food joints where you have to wait upwards of an hour to get yer damn dinner (and when you get it, like i did one night, you wonder whether the lettuce in your $9.99 salad was vintage 2007.)

still, we had our moments. we played a ton of mini golf. we swam in the indoor/outdoor pool. (jools especially loved the sandy hot tub, which i avoided like the plague.) and, of course, we hit the beach.

ah, the beach.

since most maryland kids are back in school, the beach was not terribly crowded, though there were plenty of new yorkers and new jerseyans, driving like maniacs along coastal highway. all the while, i was scratching my head: there are beaches far closer, and possibly nicer, than ocean city: why the hell are these people driving several hours to come here?

but we had fun. the tides created a massive shelf on the beach, which was a little bizarre and which caused me to slightly injure my formerly operated-on knee. we jumped in the waves. we played in the sand. we got to see the sandcastle jesus (at night, his stigmata lights up, prompting BC to yell his hands are on fire!!!!!) we did all that beachy stuff, plus BS got to chase a little redneck toddler off our blanket when we found him rummaging through our stuff while his mama, his grandma, and a man (who i assume was his baby-daddy) casually watched.

truth be told, we are beach snobs, more used to the more upscale, laid-back, outer banks of duck, nc. when BC suggested we eat at a thai restaurant, BS and i laughed: the most exotic cuisine we could find in ocean city was either mexican or chinese. (this, of course, does not include the zillion and one pizza restaurants, which i suppose counts for italian.) in duck and the surrounding areas, there are caribbean restaurants, there are upscale restaurants, there’s something for everyone with a remotely worldly palate.

not in ocean city, hon.

one night, we went to what we thought might be a fairly nice restaurant. only, too bad for us: most of the people on vacation in ocean city went there, too. we were to wait an hour in the sandy playground area. only, once again, too bad for us: jools became a little too restless and was throwing sand. we left in a huff, which is how we ended up at that $9.99 salad wiltfest.

one thought we had: at least they don’t have brew thrus in ocean city. we couldn’t imagine the mayhem that would cause, considering the classy level of folks we mostly encountered.

ah well. we were away. and we were together. and we were in once piece.

and that’s what matters, hon.

nothin’ is planned on the sea or the sand.

punky's dilemma

Posted on August 25, 2008 by wrekehavoc

school is about to start, and i’m wrestling with my kids’ lunchtime situations, both from a nutritional and an environmental perspective. you can experience my angst on this topic over at the green parent, where i’m guest blogging today. go check it out and share your solutions, people.

i sure need them.

and to those of you who’ve gotten here via the awesome green parent blog, welcome. i promise not to curse in this post.

after that, all bets are off. (if you read back at my ongoing, so-called vacation from h-e-double-toothpicks, you may understand why.)

when the going gets tough

Posted on August 24, 2008 by wrekehavoc

(hell yeah, i’m quoting billy ocean. whatcha gonna do about it?)

so part one of salvage the vacation quest was a bit of a bust. we took a drive to york, pa, stopping in towson, md along the way to hit the rainforest cafe for dinner. (i have finally come to terms with rainforest, if only because this is now the closest one, so i am not constantly hearing pullllease mama, can we go to rainforest??? pullllllease???) it was kids eat for $1.99 night — whee! there was a guy making balloon animals, and in general, it was a nice meal until jools felt like he was going to throw up. oh, the joys of hanging out in a restaurant bathroom, waiting for your son to blow chunks. which, i would note, he never did. he was simply tired. i want to go to sleep, he announced. so off we went. in total, that trip took a harrowing six hours, which includes rush hour in both washington AND baltimore plus one hour at dinner.

full day one we drove to hersheypark (losing I-83 temporarily somewhere around harrisburg, but getting back on track eventually.) i love hersheypark. it’s everything six flags is not: clean, friendly, full of helpful employees. there’s even a kosher restaurant there. i’m not kosher, but it was a revelation to me that someone would actually put something like that there. it also probably accounted for the several busloads of orthodox members of my tribe who were there on the sweltering day, girls dressed in long denim skirts and long sleeved shirts.

oh, and there’s chocolate. so it isn’t fancy chocolate — i was raised on hershey’s milk chocolate, and to me, it tastes like my childhood. we hit chocolate world twice, as they were giving out new hershey bliss bars as you exited. of course, when you ride something like that with a smartass like me, well, the bliss is all mine. first, we read about how childless milton hershey started a school for orphan boys, a noble pursuit which still runs today, though i believe it is for girls, too, now. but i looked at BS and said, how nice, he opened a school for boys. but what about the girls? what were they going to do in life? then, of course, you learn about the chocolate. and here i go, spoiling all the fun: i bet it isn’t free trade chocolate, is it? so is hershey doing anything to not exploit people in developing nations?

yeah, i’m fun like that.

anyway, the park was pretty crowded and it was pretty hot. we did get on some rides, most notably jools’ first time on a real roller coaster (both the comet and the sidewinder), so we did have fun. but it was impossible again to hit the waterpark, and, as i said before, the lines were a bit insane. and by the time we got to eat dinner, it was after 8pm, BS’s brand new cell phone’s touch screen was shattered by his time on the comet rollercoaster, and people were pretty exhausted. we drove back to york in the dark on fumes, a tired, cranky crew.

day two. dutch wonderland. DW is a lot of fun for kids under the age of about 7. it, too, is pretty clean and friendly, just like hershey. it also has a kosher restaurant, just like hershey. (in fact, BC asked whether there was a corporate relationship between the two parks. she’s smart like that.) it was also pretty crowded and pretty hot. BS, being exhausted from the previous day and pretty stressed from the fact that we almost got killed on I-83 that morning while merging (no exaggeration this time, i’m afraid), basically became ill. he sat out in the car for a little while, while the kids and i explored the park some more. unfortunately for me, the only place without a long line for lunch was…the kosher mart. but too bad for me: i was wearing my mini purse, which i pack with only the barest of necessities, especially since BS has other stuff in his wallet. only, too bad for me: BS was in the car, trying to revive his stomach. all i had was $20 in my pocket and an Amex. they don’t take Amex, and $20 didn’t cover lunch. little by little, i was telling the very , very sweet person at the kosher mart to remove this item or that item until i hit $17.

then i sat my kids down at the bird-poop-covered table to eat. and i cried. i was tired, i was hungry, i had a sore throat, and i really just wanted to leave.

eventually, BS returned to the park, and the kids and we went on a few gentle rides before leaving. we were going to dinner at the house of my best friend from grad school, Kip, when we hit first a major accident on Route 30 (read: the only road between here and there), then a lane closure. by the time we were near our hotel, BS told me to drop him off and i could take the kids to Kip’s. which i did. he was really looking green around the gills, so i knew better than to press my luck.

we had a great time at Kip’s — this was probably way more my speed for the day — eating dinner and letting the kids run around in their massive yard. she had found a DVD game of Family Feud at a yard sale for $1, which we played twice. (Kip, btw, is a master of finding finds at yard sales, etc.) and we returned at 10 pm, only to find that the electronic lock on our room had been changed. fortunately, BS woke up and let us in.

there’s so much more fun to report, like our miserable ride back yesterday (which included an entire bottle of nestle quik spilled all over the inside of the car), but i’ll spare you. suffice to say that by the time we got home, we had shell-shocked kids, a mom on the brink of tears, and a dad on the brink of reenacting a scene from the Exorcist.

i know today’s going to be better.

all mixed up

Posted on August 20, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i was supposed to be on an amtrak train today, heading south to orlando, destination: disney. instead, i am home. amtrak cancelled my train due to a storm called faye that never turned into a hurricane.

it’s all mixed up.

first, amtrak never actually contacted us to tell us. if i hadn’t been a person who follows everything on the web, i would actually be travelling to lorton right now, getting ready to board a train on a track to nowhere. then, when we called amtrak the first time, they told us that they were canceling both legs of our train trip. if i wanted my return trip, i would need to rebook — at a higher price. at that point in time, we were contemplating driving down and taking the train back, so to say we were pissed about that would be the understatement of the century. i wrote a nastygram to amtrak. to their credit, an agent called me last night at 10:30 p.m. to tell me that they’d hang on to my return trip if i let them know by 4 p.m. wednesday.

in reality, we are not in the right mind to drive two days for our trip. i think there’s a certain level of mental prep that one does for such an experience, and we were simply not there. and, as the next train down with available seating doesn’t leave until monday, this dog wasn’t huntin’.

meanwhile, The Mouse doesn’t care that i have no way of coming to disney; they want $200 cancellation fee, thank-you-very-much. unless there is a hurricane warning declared, disney is open and expects your ass on the monorail.

oh. and there’s the little matter of two children who were completely pumped for their trip to disneyworld. they have been trying to be little troopers, especially since we told them we’re going to reschedule this trip if it’s the last thing we do; but jeez louise, this situation continues to go from dumb to dumber. only one or two highlights, as there were actually so many from which to choose:

a) when we call to officially cancel the amtrak train, an extremely nasty, sharp-tongued ticket agent informed BS that he was getting $400 back. uh, come again? those tix cost WAY more than $400. he asked her why, and she began yelling a barrage of nastiness at him. (she should thank her lucky stars that i was not on the phone. at that point, i was in no mood for anyone messing with me, my family, or anybody.) when BS asked for a supervisor, she clearly put on her colleague. nevermind; the colleague was nice and even honored the old price for the rescheduled trip.

b) when rescheduling disney, the confirmation came back — with DIFFERENT DATES AT THE WRONG HOTEL. he got on the phone, and something apparently had gone kerflooey. someone went into the database and fixed things; we’re waiting for the emailed confirmation to show that things have been put right.

there’s so much more i could write, but suffice to say, i am extremely disappointed with Amtrak and Disney. i am shocked at how we’ve been treated. things better be better the next time or else i guess our days of patronizing either enterprise are limited.

lessons learned:

sometimes travel insurance (which we had) is completely irrelevant
never travel to florida in august
we are actually capable of making lemonade out of lemons

re: the last bit: we will make our own fun. just closer to home. i’ll keep blogging; i’ll just be a little sporadic, as my buddy maren likes to say. see, i have these three other people here, and i think i’m supposed to pay attention to them. so talk amongst yourselves. i’ll still give a guilty pleasure monday next week; how could i not? and maybe i’ll type another thing or two.

but in short: i need a break from all this vacation crap.

that's entertainment

Posted on August 12, 2008 by wrekehavoc

BC has been at a trip camp for the past week. fortunately, she is having a much better time at this camp than at the last one. she has made a friend or two, and what is there not to like when every day, you hit a waterpark or a zoo or some other venue of fun? (next summer, i want a summer camp for grownups.) but i suspect making a friend has made all the difference with miss thang, who is quite the social chick.

that’s why i was struck by something she said yesterday as i picked her up. mama, she said, so-and-so has an mp3 player like mine.

she brought an mp3 player to camp? i asked.

oh mama, everyone on the bus has mp3 players or nintendos, game boys, cell phones. that sort of thing.

time for the maternal head scratch. aren’t people supposed to actually talk to each other on the bus? interact?

we do talk, mama.

yeah. the social ones. or the ones like mine, whose mama doesn’t allow her to bring any electronics to camp. mean, mean mama.

what is up with people these days? why do our children have to be entertained every. single. blessed. second. of. the. day? i mean, i understand if you’re going on a four-hour drive listening to books on tape or watching DVDs. but a hop across town? a bus ride at camp?

not to mention the fact that my kids would probably lose the few expensive electronics they possess if i let them take them anywhere.

but i digress. per usual.

it reminds me of the time when we were on our first (and last) carnival cruise. the award-winning children’s program had two full hours of kids playing on gameboys. even girlfriend, who was about seven at the time, knew that was lame.

don’t get me wrong. we have our serious couch potato tendencies around here. we are all computer addicts. we probably watch too much television. we all could do with more exercise. but i ensure there are times in my kids’ lives when they are bored. bored, bored, bored. because you know what? life can be boring. and that’s okay. take a boring moment and figure out how to handle it. play? read? clean? run? call a friend? so many options.

plenty which don’t require batteries.

letting go

Posted on July 23, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i didn’t realize how easy i had it with one child until i had a second.

and i would never, ever trade either of them in for all the tea in china (though there are days when i might give them away, especially on days when they fight about the most picayune things. like who is taking up more space on the planet.)

but this week, while BC is at sleepaway camp with the Girl Scouts for the first time, i am feeling a little blue. i haven’t gotten any boohooey phone calls begging me to drive out to boofoo the middle of nowhere camp to come and pick her up. i’m pleasantly surprised by that fact, as i intentionally picked the camp closest to home in case i got the call at some ungodly hour and had to schlep my ass out, half-asleep, and collect the child. after all, when girlfriend found out that there was no electricity in the cabins, that they had to pee in latrines, that they would have to CLEAN aforementioned latrines, and that there were bugs in them there woods… well, we were not amused.

but she’s still there.

it is giving me the opportunity to really focus on jools, my little big man, who will be hitting elementary school soon (and probably hard.) we play toss the dog with his webkinz. we watch the magic schoolbus, especially the one where they all turn into bats. i want to be a bat, he tells me, because i want to eat bugs. (charmed, i’m sure.) but it’s leaps and bounds better than his current favorite, ben ten: alien force. (yep. the interest in aliens is completely BS’s contribution to the gene pool. but the fact that he rewinds it multiple times to hear the theme song, which he loves — all mine.)

i love the fact that it’s all about him, as it never really is on most days. that’s part of the fun of not being the first child; although when you’re the youngest, you eventually get your turn… of course, you get it as a teenager, when you really don’t want all that much one-on-one time with your folks. typically speaking, anyway.

still, the house is so quiet. i don’t miss people fighting.

but i miss my girl.

i don’t want to tell her, though. she’s the type who will never leave my side if she thinks i’m sad. and part of being a mom — maybe the toughest part about being a mom — is letting go.

if this is just a week, i can’t imagine what’s in store for me later.

this party sucks

Posted on July 21, 2008 by wrekehavoc

okay, i really wanted to entitle this why six flags america sucks, but as i like to keep my titles thematically consistent (hey, you hadn’t noticed by now that in 2008, they’re all song titles?) AND, well, any excuse to mention the slickee boys…

anyway, for the past few years, we’ve bought annual passes to six flags. going once pretty much pays for it, and going more than once makes it more cost-effective… cost-effective until you buy items at the park, like food, water, and anything else. but that’s life in amusement park land, of course. i don’t mind when it’s a special day; and every summer, i take one day and take BC to the park alone, and i take jools to the park alone on another. we only go either on weekends early or late in the season or weekdays in the summer; this helps to combat massive crowds. this year, i have already taken both kids to the park, and i am more than underwhelmed. in fact, i can safely state that the park has gone to hell in a handcart. here’s why, in no particular order:

1. all those signs that tell people to keep it clean because employees’ families attend the park, too? how about some employees respecting MY family once in awhile? like not saying the word shit in front of my five year old? okay, so i’m a potty mouth, albeit a judicious one; i just don’t expect that sort of thing in regular conversation by a service employee who is in uniform and on the job.

2. gum. on my shoe. every time.

3. wave pool doesn’t open on time. ever. something to do with training lifeguards. hello? the pool is supposed to open at 11. it gives you a couple of hours to train them prior to park opening. oh, you mean it’s too cold to swim before then? you’re a lifeguard; get over yourself.

4. wave pool closes for 15 minutes every hour.

5. way too many unsupervised kids in wave pool, kids who don’t seem to care about whether they ride over someone on a raft. why do they even allow rafts in the wave pool?

6. way too many unsupervised kids in crocodile cal’s beach house. lifeguards circle the area, but i finally had to step in when my five year old was getting continually mowed down by other kids while waiting his turn for slides.

7. ditto for the baby pool area. there is an EXTREMELY thin yet high staircase to the top of the big slide there. it is covered in netting, which my son was able to move to a dangerous degree. and once on top, he was actually pushed around by boys and girls who were about 12. at least.

8. sylvester’s bounce and pounce? not open in the morning.

9. kiddy bumper cars? not open in the morning.

10. flume ride? not open at opening.

11. renegade rapids? not open til noon.

12. there’s one coaster that has never been open in the four or five years i have had season passes. looks like it would be fun, but i’ll never know.

13. why is the train only available to picnicking business groups? do you have any earthly idea how many little kids want to ride the choo choo?

14. 30 minutes to get two slices of cheese pizza. 30. minutes. with. a. hungry. five. year. old. boy. oh, and this wasn’t at peak time: this was at 2 pm on a monday afternoon.

15. witnessed female employee (princess was her name; and if she moved any slower, she would be moving backwards. the other lady, karouselle, lived up to her name, moving in circles) at papa johns (aforementioned pizza experience) actually give away another person’s whole pizza.

16. no manager present to discuss pizza situation.

17. at register, mentioned the issue to cashier. sorry, he said, we’re short-staffed. ultimately, he gave me a 20% discount on my two slices for my trouble. thus apparently, 30 minutes of my-special-day-with-my-boy-sucked-up-into-a-papajohns-vortex-of-doom = $2.60. whee.

18. no more pesky service staff at locker center near the front. sadly, when the computerized locker failed to work, there were no more pesky service staff to help us. nine year old daughter actually had to flag down passing employee, who radioed for help. help came 15 minutes later when daughter recognized the computer logo on a man passing by. daughter snagged said man and brought him over. (note to self: who needs assertiveness training classes for BC? send her to six flags and let her loose to find any employee who might actually help her in a situation.)

19. $1 off skill games coupon in six flags season pass coupon book apparently not applicable for the water-gun game this week. funny, it was applicable two weeks ago when BC played at the same booth, but now, water squirting is apparently no longer a skill, unlike what six flags itself says on its website:

Games

Ready for a little friendly competition? Come out to the park and show us what you’ve got. Step right up for long-range basketball, skee-ball, water gun races��-real games of skill. Team up with your group or go head-to-head. You might just win a prize for someone special.

shooting basketballs and skeeball apparently is. who knew?

20. as BS pointed out, if the water gun race is not a game of skill, then it is a game of chance, which is illegal, if i am not mistaken, in prince georges county.

21. two people must play in order for someone to win a prize in aforementioned non-game-of-skill. thus, you are paying $6 for a stuffed item made in china.

22. aforementioned stuffed item made in china has a GAPING hole in it, much like the gaping hole in identical item BC won a few weeks ago. wondering whether there was a child laborer stowed away in item. hope he or she was able to find freedom here.

23. on summer weekdays, it appears that every elementary through high school aged child in the county is present without any parents, in full bling and pushing past other kids who might actually be in front of them in line for anything.

24. have the balls in the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? has the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? i had the pleasure of sitting next to an opened bottle of orange soda today, spillage and all, and we were among the first people in the place.

and, finally,

25. the bathrooms? i’ll refrain from TMI, but in a word, EWWW.

i’m not entirely sure whether this is the case in all six flags. i had thought about taking the kids to six flags great adventure next week, but after our experiences so far this year, i am wondering whether the entire corporation is going kerflooey. there are so many amusement parks that do things well — disney, of course, and hersheypark, for two — so i have to wonder whether six flags simply cannot handle things.

i think this may be our last year for season passes.

ants marching

Posted on July 15, 2008 by wrekehavoc

ARGH!

the heavy rains, probably combined with my stellar ability to keep up with the massive crumbs and spills that the kids (especially hellboy) rain down upon the floor have resulted in a ton of ants visiting us. to be fair, they started about a month ago, one or two intrepid souls (souls? do ants have souls? brains?) trotting around the table where we eat. easily smooshed and removed. (hey — don’t confuse me with sharon stone and her treatment of tarantulas.)

but last night at dinner, BS noticed a swarm (swarm? what is a group of ants called? a gaggle? a colony? a political party?) by the table, right where hellboy had spilled an entire cup of apple juice the night before. i had cleaned it up with a lot more than just soap, water and paper towels, but evidently, that was not enough; those ants picked up the trail of sweet stuff and off they ran. so off i ran to the store to buy ammonia; and with it in his possession, BS started his radical clean, followed by some ant bait he had on hand. (note to self: must figure out where he keeps this stuff.)

this morning, there are a bajillion ants swarming in and around this ant trap thingy he has set up. i’m afraid to let the kids eat at the table, though jools has no such fear.

i really like nature; i just don’t like nature when it shows up in my house looking for its next meal.

(warning to the raccoons who use my trash can as a diner: it won’t be long before i attach bungee cords to the can and you’ll have to dine elsewhere.)

it don't come easy

Posted on June 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

today, i share the tale of the Easy Bake Oven. it will be a tale much like another famous tale, though it involves no curtains. mercifully.

it’s starts with a little girl. let’s call her BC, shall we, as we always do around here. when BC was about three years old, she went to a chanukah party at her uncle BTD’s house. there were many children there, as her uncle has five kids, and her uncle’s wife’s family has a lot of children and cousins. at this party, everyone had presents to exchange; everyone, except the uncle, who had presents for all of the other children but no present for his beloved (and at the time only) niece, BC. probably a little oversight on the busy present shopper’s part.

in any event, bless BTD’s heart: this is conjecture, of course, but it appeared that after BC’s beloved uncle scrambled upstairs, and then downstairs, he presented BC with a gift he had plucked from an upstairs closet from thin air: a brand-new Easy Bake Oven. BC loved this oven; only, too bad for her. EBOs are for children age eight and up. no matter how mature madame was at this age, she was not ready for an EBO. carefully, her grandmother whisked the present away to toys r us, where she exchanged it for something a little safer for a spunky three year old.

fast forward to our hero, the now-eight-year-old BC. that same grandmother, remembering how much her granddaughter wanted that EBO, got it for her for chanukah. her other uncle, the lovable, right-wing nutball larry, supplied a whole bunch of EBO mixes to keep her own personal glycemic index at about 1000. happy days are here again, right?

not quite.

for our hero, who had not yet fully developed her ability to read fine print, took the giant long cattle prod pushing tool and shoved it into the oven, lodging it permanently inside the oven, even before she had any chance at baking anything. oh woe, she cried. her mom, desperate to dislodge the long plastic thingy, called up hasbro for guidance. unfortunately for all, hasbro and our friends at the cpsc had just announced a recall of the EBO. apparently, other things were getting entrapped in the ovens. (things called fingers.) dutifully, BC’s mom and dad packed it up and returned it, as they had been instructed. the mixes lingered, but the oven was gone with the wind postal service.

months went by, months when hasbro said they might rebuild it; or then again, maybe not. eventually, they issued a $25 gift certificate for any item on hasbro.com. considering the shipping, it wasn’t the best offer in the world. (BC’s mom promptly lost the offer, so in truth, she’s just rationalizing because she felt so guilty.) in time, BC’s evil mom, fearing that the mixes were going to be nastier than nasty, chucked them as well.

fast forward once again to this very date, a date which shall be remembered for so many things. for one thing, BC’s brother jools celebrated a whole week of dry nights; he was to be gifted, as promised, with a shark slip and slide. (after weeks of obsessing about this item, he decided to choose two other items instead as his reward.) for another, BC achieved straight As on her report card. and, remembering that a child had been denied her EBO for so many years, BC’s parents caved bought her her very own EBO.

hurray!

but woe to BC: her mixes are gone. BC’s mother, being cheap industrious, located DIY EBO recipes on the internet, as she knew the three included mixes would last about two minutes. and after BC’s dad returned from the store with a lightbulb (the secret to those crispy crusts delicate cakes heated plastic oven walls), we set forth on our baking adventure.

#1: yellow cake (one packet) with chocolate frosting (one packet), baked especially for the man who bought the lightbulb.

#2 and #3: chocolate peanut butter fudge, one serving shared by wreke and jools, this serving was affectionately dubbed gloop for it’s consistency. imagine the fine taste of confectioners sugar with a slight brownish tinge. the second attempt, eaten by BC after a stint in the fridge, fared a little better.

BC had a great time, though her mother, wreke, was left with the realization that the same woman who would not buy wreke an EBO was willing to do so for her grandchild. no, instead, wreke realized that her own mother, aka the grandmother, was willing instead to let wreke use the real oven instead.

in retrospect, it was probably safer.