Gingerbread Crack Houses

One recipe said a gingerbread house would “take all weekend.” Another said, “Banish all small children from the kitchen,” but Laura and I didn’t believe the hype. We decided to have a stay-at-home mom Stepford-style holiday baking spree.

Being outnumbered by children two-to-one wouldn’t be a problem. The babies would cooperate by sleeping and the toddlers would follow directions. Gingerbread would become a shared Christmas tradition. The websites didn’t tell me that gingerbread, like heroin, alcohol, or crack, would lead me to violate my principles as a parent.

During Cedar’s first two years I was an anti-TV, anti-sugar zealot. Maybe baby number two softened me. Maybe Christmas with kids made me delusional. Maybe when there are only three hours and thirty minutes of daylight, sugar and TV become necessities. Whatever the reason, the two-day gingerbread house ordeal broke me.

Day one, the baking was difficult. We thought the girls would calmly cut out stars and people with the cookie cutters. Instead they decided that flour tasted great on its own. Despite our attempts to explain, “flour is an ingredient, not a food,” they each downed about a third of a cup. Cedar licked the countertop like a junkie after I confiscated hers.

The babies, alternately fussing in slings or crying in the bouncy chair, complicated the baking. Squirming babies in slings made it hard to operate a mixer or rolling pin. Taking pans out of the oven became impossible.

At the end of day one, surveying our warped and crooked house parts, Laura said, “Decorating will be a lot more fun than this.”

Decorating was much worse. The frosting attracted the girls like lemonade attracts yellowjackets. They poked and licked, poked and licked. The ramshackle houses teetered.

Laura had read about having kids make graham cracker houses with milk cartons for support. We broke out the graham crackers. Of course, they would work quietly on their own projects.

As Laura handed them little cups full of frosting and bowls of candy she said, “These are not for eating.” We both burst out laughing. All we could do was sit there and watch them dig in. They scooped frosting into their mouths with their fingers. Only a few pieces of candy made it onto the houses. Cedar pulled the frosted graham crackers off her milk carton and licked them too.

We confiscated the little houses, and the girls rushed to the kitchen and stuck their fingers into the puddles of frosting that were holding our houses upright. I wanted to shout, “Damnit, We’re trying to make a nice Christmas memory and you’re both ruining it.”

Instead I said, “Come on girls, let’s watch a video!” Ellie asked, “What video?” Zoolander? The Sopranos Season One? What was upstairs in our previously almost TV-free house? I found a Schoolhouse Rocks DVD I bought years ago (in an attempt to relive my own childhood). The girls, starting to come down off their sugar buzzes, lay on the floor under blankets and stared, zombielike.

Later, when Cedar woke up after her nap she requested a snack. “May I have a bowl of frosting, please?” she asked. Goodbye carrots and broccoli. Hello Cheetos and TiVo.

tags technorati : motherhood baking