the loooooong day (subtitled: the day I stopped a flamingo from falling over)

Yesterday was one of those days when you think that SURELY it must be 5:30 already, but when you look at the clock it only says 12:15. It was a loooong day.

To start off, I had to wake up at dark o’thirty. Technically it was only 6:30, but I don’t enjoy rising when the first number on the clock isn’t a 7 or higher. I had to make my first batch of frosting for that evenings cake class. Making frosting is not something I really love doing at a normal time, so you can imagine the warm fuzzy feelings I had towards Crisco and vanilla flavoring at 6:42. As soon as I finished the frosting I had to leave for babysitting.

Normally Amelia and I will venture out to Pet Smart when we want a big adventure, but I needed to buy my friend a wedding gift and I didn't think she’d appreciate a new dog bowl or a hamster cage, so we went to Pier 1 instead.  Pier 1 isn't normally among the top 12 places to take a two year old, but she’s not Molly a wild child so I figured we’d give it a shot. I had built The Fancy Store up to being a very special place, so special that rule was we ONLY touch things with one finger. Things went surprisingly well. I think part of this has to do with my over-enthusiastic exclamations of “Have you EVER seen such a pretty napkin ring, Amelia? Do you see this monkey salt shaker??” to keep her attention. I guess I didn't need to be so enthusiastic because she found a green and blue broom that held her fascination for a good three minutes. I gave her a silk flower to hold and she alternated sweeping the floor with it and using it like a metal detector. Her flower broom found its way to a flamingo statue that she paused to look at before kissing it squaring on its beak. The flamingo was so shocked that he started teetering back and forth and I barely made it over in time to catch him from falling. Amelia gave me a look that clearly said, “What? Don’t you go around randomly kissing things at The Fancy Store? Not even that napkin ring you so enjoyed?”. By that time I had found what I was looking for and we exiting the store, triumphant in the knowledge that besides the flamingos heart breaking by our departure, we hadn't caused any damage.

I spent- and I wish I was exaggerating here- no less than three hours the afternoon making and coloring frosting. The kitchen was a disaster, the frosting on cake had crumbs in it, the sink was FULL of dishes, and I had frosting in my hair. I even put the sponge in the trash instead of in the sink. Finally I had everything cleaned up and my bag for class on the table so I could just grab it and go. I was carrying over the cake holder to put with the bag when I realized the cake wasn't even in it. It was still sitting on the counter. Can you imagine if I forgot to bring my cake to the cake decorating class?? I couldn't even say my dog ate it because we don’t have a dog! Like I said, looooong day.

Considering how my afternoon was, I wasn't expecting the class to go very well. It was the last class of Level 1 so we had a big decorating project and I was so nervous. Thankfully the whole thing went much better than expected (I had kept my expectations very very low), and I think my cake came out well! 

I was so happy to go bed last night. SO SO HAPPY. And this morning, I got up when the first number on the clock was A LOT higher than 7.