Dancing With Salmonella

I love to bake. I hate to clean, but I love to bake. I especially love to bake chocolate chip cookie bars because chocolate chip cookie dough is my crack. Hello. My name is Allison and I am a chocolate chip cookie dough addict. Yes, I am well aware that there are raw eggs in chocolate chip cookie dough and I don't care. Of course, I would never let my children have cookie dough because of the risk of salmonella, but they haven't had the opportunity to build up a tolerance to raw eggs like I have and frankly, I don't want them to get sick on my watch. Yeah, part of that is because I am a good mom who hates to see her children sick (and I know I could use pasteurized eggs but I don't), but the other part of that...well, I'll just be honest, I don't want them throwing up all over the floor because invariably there will always be at least one kid who doesn't make it to the toilet, and (okay, don't hate me because I am sure you can relate to this on some level) I really don't want to share my cookie dough. By the time I get the dough spread into my bar pan, there is just a little bit left in the mixing bowl, just a smidgen on the beater, and a teeny tiny minuscule amount left on the spoon. It would never amount to much if I had to share it with four kiddos. Besides, I don't want to enable them to the point of becoming a dough addict like their mother. After all, addiction can be hereditary.

So there I was yesterday, channeling my best June Cleaver, baking yummy chocolate chip cookie bars and remembering to add love and goo which is what I always tell the boys makes my cooking tastes so good. The boys were upstairs playing, my baby girl was scaling the living room walls, and my husband was working quietly on his laptop at the kitchen table. It was such a serene moment that I lost myself in my mixing and measuring. I do a lot of my baking while the baby naps and the boys lose themselves in a video game. It's my alone time. Just me and my cookie dough or me and my buttermilk pie or me and my beer bread, but yesterday was different. George was home. I put the bar pan in the oven and started the task of cleaning the mixer. I found myself licking the beater over the kitchen sink while taking in the view of the backyard. I was alone with my dough, or so I thought. Suddenly, I felt eyes upon me. I slowly turned to look over my shoulder and saw my George, the love of my life, the man of my dreams, looking right at me with an expression of horror mixed with disgust all over his face. I think it was the first time he'd ever caught me with my dough. "What?" I asked too caught up in my own dough euphoria to be embarrassed. He simply replied with laughter.

So George would never eat anything with raw eggs in it but I figure they were good enough for Rocky Balboa, and they are good enough for me so long as they are wrapped in butter and brown sugar.

Maybe That Is The Best Smile He Can Do

I desperately want a beautiful family portrait. You know the kind where the whole family is seemingly blissfully unaware that a photographer is capturing every wonderful moment they are spending playing in the forest while each member of the family just happens to be perfectly coiffed and wearing a coordinating outfit. Ah, but this is simply a pipe dream in my world. A dream that only becomes more unobtainable with each child we add to the mix.

Today, we had our church directory photo taken. Now, I know this isn't quite the same as having a professional photographer take your family photo out on location, but I still hold tight to the dream. I put a lot of thought into choosing the right color coordinated outfits. I made certain that everyone had a recent but not too recent haircut and I personally styled all of the children's hair the day of the photo. I even went to great lengths to make certain no one spilled his breakfast on his clothes or dribbled his toothpaste down his shirt.  Alas, this effort was all for not. Let's face it, the church directory photo session is the wham bam thank you ma'am of photo shoots. There is no time spent getting the kids to loosen up and relax. Heck, the guy simply referenced the kids based on their height rather than taking 2 minutes to learn their names. We were in and out in five minutes so I really didn't expect to end up with the perfect family portrait, the one that captures the true essence of each of my four lovely children and my handsome husband, all the while making me look 15 pounds lighter and 10 years younger. I really didn't even expect to like the portrait, but I certainly didn't think it would be so bad that I would laugh out loud when the salesman tried to coax us into purchasing a package. Really? Was he looking at the same proof that I was or was he drinking 80 proof?

So none of my children have mastered the art of faking a natural smile. It's not their fault. I think I was 19 before I could do it, and I'm a girl with some vanity issues. Awkwardness is in our gene pool. My boys are boys. They don't care about looking cute in photos and my baby girl, well she's still too young to get it and frankly, she's too smart to find the humor in the feather duster the photographer kept waving in her face. So there we were, George and I front and center donning our most genuine fake smiles, a stoic Vivie was seated in my lap while we were flanked by the three boys. Jacob and Nathan came close to genuinely smiling but still not really looking themselves, but Liam, my dear sweet wonderful Liam, can single handedly ruin a picture. I write this with all the love in my heart, because frankly, I love that Liam is his own person. He is wonderfully weird and funny and oh so creative; however, when Liam was in kindergarten, for reasons unknown to me, he decided that his claim to fame would be that he is the one kid who never (and he really shoots for never) smiles in pictures. Well, sometimes to accomplish this goal, this means Liam won't even look in the general direction of the photographer for fear that he may accidentally smile at the photographer. Other times, this means that Liam will contort his mouth into any other expression trying to fight against the appearance of a smile. No matter the technique Liam uses to avoid smiling, the result is always the same...one awkward family photo.

So I had to laugh today when the salesman, who was earnestly trying to persuade me into purchasing a portrait package, simply said, "Maybe that is the best smile he can do."

The Eyes Have It

When I was about 5 years old, I started collecting Madame Alexander's Dolls of the World. Once I had acquired several of those dolls, I started wanting larger dolls to add to my collection. So when I was in second grade, my mom gave me a 15 inch vinyl doll dressed in a Victorian style brown velvet dress with a matching hat. She came wrapped in a box with a clear window showcasing the doll in all her beauty. While I was excited to get a new doll for my collection, there was something unsettling about this particular doll. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't want to take her out of the box. I simply told Mom I just didn't want her clothes to get dusty, and there, wrapped in her box, the doll stayed for several days.

I finally decided to take the doll out of her cardboard sarcophagus and get a closer look at her. While I had the doll in my hands, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling building up inside of me, my brother, Tad, just happened to come into my room. I'm sure he must have sensed my uneasiness about the doll because he proceeded to tell me the scariest story about a doll scratching out some little girl's eyes (oh yeah... I also have a thing about eyes). Well, I just laughed it off, but as soon as Tad left the room, I packed that vinyl beast back into her box where she stayed for the next 4 years. Not wanting to hurt Mom's feelings, I stuck with the whole premise of wanting to keep the doll pristine. During the day, the box was on display in my room, but at night, I put that box in the far corner of my closet and shut the door.

So 4 years after I got that creepy doll, our house caught on fire while we were on vacation. Let me just stop you here, I do not think the doll started the fire. Although, having that thought for the first time just now, really gave me the chills. No, I repeat, the doll did not start the fire. We pretty much lost everything in the fire and I have to say, as devastating as losing your home can be, I found some solace in the knowledge that the doll was gone and I decided then and there that my doll collecting days were behind me. It was just too risky of a hobby.

Several months later, my grandmother and my great aunt decided to surprise me with a gift. I couldn't wait to see what was in the gift bag. As soon as I put my hand in the bag, I realized I probably should have told them that I was no longer interested in dolls so they wouldn't have wasted their money buying me a new one. As I pulled the doll out of the bag, my heart stopped when I saw the brown velvet dress and matching hat. Trying to catch my breath I asked, "Where did you find another doll like this?" To which my great aunt replied, "We found your old one in the rubble and took her to my friend who restores dolls." (AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!) Quick on my feet, I asked my grandmother if I could keep the doll (who mind you no longer had her box prison thanks to the fire) at her house so I would have something special of mine there.

That was the beginning of my pediophobia, or fear of dolls. I have what I like to call a rational case of pediophobia. I am not scared of all dolls, just the evil ones. It's all in the eyes. If you look into enough dolls' eyes, and if you're honest with yourself, you'll know what I mean.

Some 17 years later, shortly after my grandfather had passed away (and no, I don't think the doll killed him), Mom and I were helping my grandmother pack up her house so she could move in with my folks. My grandmother reached inside one of the closets and pulled out that same doll and asked me, "Would you like to take her home with you?" Mom, aware of my fear at this point and now a bit of a pediophobe herself, said, "Well she's not coming to my house!" Somehow, that doll ended up in the donation pile but every now and again, I can't help but think our paths will cross again.

The Seventh Grade Squeeze

My oldest son, Jacob, will be starting 7th grade in just a few weeks. In my efforts to wrap my head around the whole Where Did The Time Go concept, I have been feeling a little nostalgic for my 7th grade year. That was a fun year, and I hate to say it,  but given the chance, I might would just do it all over again (this time with contacts instead of the my old goofy pink glasses with lenses the size of salad plates).

So it's probably obvious (what with the glasses and all) that I was a pretty big dork in 7th grade, but it really didn't matter because I had a great circle of friends and in our own ways, we were all a little dorky, right? Anyway, that was the year, that I gained some independence in that I was allowed for the first time to hang out with my friends unchaperoned at the mall.

I spent a lot of free time with my friends at the mall trying on clothes, eating pizza, ogling boys, and giggling. One of our favorite stops at the mall, was this store that had fun trendy clothes for teens. The only problem was that this store's fitting rooms did not have doors or curtains on the stalls. At 12, this was not a shopping deal breaker, but now, with my aging postpartum duct taped body, fuhgeddaboudit. One afternoon while shopping there with my friends, I decided to try on one of those sexy tight dresses intended for a girl much older than 12. I knew there was no way on God's green earth that my mother was ever going to let me wear it because she had this crazy rule that I was not allowed to dress like a hooker. Go figure. Hanging out with my girls, I thought I would just try on the dress for poops and giggles. I'm sure at the time I thought it made me look every bit of 16, because really isn't 16 the age all 12 year old girls aspire to be. So I had my fun slipping into the red dress but when I decided  it was time to take off the dress...well that's when the real fun started. This dress was a pullover style with no buttons or zippers and I think it had the innate ability to get tighter while being worn. I pulled the dress up over my hips, my waist, my small chest, but then when I got it to my shoulders with my crossed arms and head hidden inside the dress, it stopped moving. It just wouldn't budge in either direction. So there I was standing in the doorless stall of the dressing room stuck in this dress with my bra and undies on display for all those in the fitting room to see. When I realized that I could neither pull the dress up over my head nor back down over my body, I called for my friends to help me. By this time, we were all laughing so hard that our bodies were too weak to pull the dress and then all of a sudden, I had to pee. So there I was with the not so sexy red dress stuck over my head, shoulders, and arms completely encasing me like a sausage, laughing so hard I'm crying, all the while doing the pee pee dance and praying that the store manager wouldn't come in and find me this way. My friends somehow managed to free me from the dress, I threw on my clothes and made it to the restroom without leaving a yellow trail. Four kids later, I can't say the outcome would be the same.

Life has a funny way of coming full circle and now I'm looking forward to see what adventures lay before Jacob this year. I pray that he has the kind of good friends that will help him out of a tight situation if need be, and I hope that his 7th grade year will be so memorable that he'd like to live it all over again.