When my husband steps in the door from work at night, both of my girls do the necessary shrieking, running, hugging, etc. But as soon as that business is taken care of, my little toddler points to the kitchen and says “Cook!” (score one for effectively turning gender roles on their heads… or for being a crappy cook. Whichever).

As soon as my husband starts making dinner she will claw at his legs, trying to scale him like a mountain in an effort to get a better view of the chopping or sauteing or whatever else might be going on. Girlfriend is obsessed.

She never shouts this little command at me, mind you. I think she must know better. But yesterday I decided to blow her mind. It was mid afternoon and she was seriously cranky. It was also a little chilly in the house, so I decided to do a little baking and let her get in on the action. Pumpkin bread is pretty much my favorite cold weather comfort treat ever–and even I can’t mess it up.

I definitely learned a lesson or two about cooking with toddlers in the process.

1. These mysterious creatures really like an abundance of bowls and dry ingredients.

As soon as I lined up a trio of bowls on the table, crank face transformed into a happy, open individual that was eager to participate in whatever experiment was about to be conducted.

Once I broke out the flour, eagerness morphed into straight up glee. Wait. Are we about to cook here?! She was like the dog in the Beggin’ Strips commercial. She went to town on those bowls, even seeming to conduct a mini orchestra.

2. Wet ingredients are the devil.

Then there were the wet ingredients. The evil, horrible, no good, very bad wet ingredients.

They’re not so bad on their own, in their own little bowl. In fact, they’re kind of fun to squish around. But don’t you even dream of getting rid of the beloved dry ingredients by tainting them with wet ingredients. That’s just straight up blasphemous and may require an exorcism to help the toddler who suddenly seems to be possessed by the devil.

There will be screaming. And crying. There will be flailing limbs and ingredients flying through the air (in our case it was allspice).

3. Beginning to clean up is the most efficient method of toddler exorcism.

When it was obvious that my monster baby was inconsolable, I started to clean up. Something about my movements and whatever I was mumbling under my breath must have completely magical because you know what? She recovered. Instantly.

Suddenly she really, really needed to stir it up a bit more, to make sure I did everything right.

(Don’t you just want to bite those little wrist rolls?!)

The pumpkin bread turned out fantastic, by the way. It was moist and totally comforting. And let me tell you, I really needed that.

Here’s the recipe I used. Total and complete meltdown not included.

My husband had to work yesterday, which meant I had the ladies all to myself all day. I was both excited and leery about this. I knew we could either have a great day or an I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored! combined with I’m just going to throw as many tantrums as I can kind of day.

I totally lucked out.

Aside from a minor nap-related meltdown, we had a great day. We made a doll from a kit Samantha got for Christmas last year (more on that partial fail later this week), we did Sam’s reading bingo homework, colored, and went to Barnes and Noble to read some books and split a Rice Krispy treat at the cafe.

When we got home, Sam decided she wanted to write a story for daddy (the absolutely hilarious title page will be in my Instagram post this week). I was feeling so warm and fuzzy after a great day with my girls, so I decided to break out the camera and take some photos of my lovelies.

Cue parenting fail.

I took a few shots of my little writer hard at work. She was really into her story (which was about a seriously gassy panda).

Yes, that is Ellie’s shoe on the table which is probably the first clue that I’m not paying as much attention to her as I should be. No judging.

Once Samantha started getting huffy and puffy about me taking pictures of her, I turned the lens to the baby bean.

Ms. One Shoe’s attention was split evenly between whatever show was on (my guess is Jake and the Neverland Pirates since she regularly demands it) and the toy in her hand.

I was so smitten by my seemingly angelic babies, I made Sam stop writing so I could take pictures of us (we don’t have nearly enough of those).

Hmmmm. Notice that faint discoloration around Ellie’s mouth in that bottom shot? I didn’t. I was in my little La-La Land and paying no attention to whatever Ellie was doing while sitting in my lap.

It was only after I saw this picture that I said What the heck is on Ellie’s mouth? I looked down at her, realizing she had been very quiet. It became immediately apparent why she was so quiet. You can’t really do a lot of talking while sucking on an ink pad!

She had taken a stamp out of her sister’s pencil case and had been sucking on the little ink pad the entire time I was taking pictures. No ink was left. None. It was all in her mouth.

Parenting fail.

Have you had any moments like this lately? It doesn’t have to be a parenting fail, but a moment when you thought everything was going smooth and life was good only to realize you weren’t really paying attention to what was actually happening. Please share and make me feel better about myself 😉

So I’m finally getting with the program and reading Tina Fey’s book Bossypants. It would be awesome if I could lie and tell you I blew through it because of its sheer awesomeness and finished it in a single afternoon, but I’m a pretty shitty liar. I get all tomato faced and stutter and its generally not a good scene (and trust me, you’d even be able to read the stutters).

It’s not that the book isn’t laugh out loud funny. Because it is. I just happen to have two mini humans that require a whole lot of my attention. I wasn’t going to tell you this because I don’t want you to judge me, but I took this book out from the library (because I’m cheap) six weeks ago. I’m currently on page 24. That’s an average of FOUR PAGES PER WEEK!

Pathetic, I know. But none of that has anything to do with what this post is actually about.

In her chapter about growing up, Tina has a section called When Did You First Know You Were a Woman? She went to a workshop while doing research for Mean Girls (yeah, she’s awesome and wrote that too) and this question was asked of all of the women there. Tina notes that most of the time this moment was defined by gross guys catcalling.

holy awkward stage

For some reason, this small section really made me think about the first time I actually felt like a woman and the answer is more than a little surprising.

I hit puberty way early. Like fourth grade, one of the first in my class early. By the time I was thirteen I was basically a tween with the body of a college girl. I was fully developed and while I tried to hide it under baggy clothes, men still noticed. And gawked. And made gross comments. Their obnoxiousness did not make me feel like a woman, it just made me leery of men.

Throughout high school and college there was still no major moment that slapped me in the face and made me say “I am woman, hear me roar.” I still felt pretty insecure and not very much like an adult.

Even when I got pregnant with my first child I didn’t feel like a woman. There is absolutely nothing womanly or remotely adult-like about peeing on a stick in your childhood bathroom and having a minor panic attack about the two lines that appear. There’s nothing womanly about screaming to your mother “How many lines is positive?!!” And definitely nothing womanly about telling your boyfriend who doesn’t particularly like children that you are, in fact, with child.

No. The first time I actually felt like a woman was immediately after giving birth–when a tiny, perfect human was placed on my chest and promptly pooped on my stomach. I was sweaty and crying and feeling about a million different emotions (ranging from sheer terror to absolute bliss) but right there, in that moment, I knew I was a woman.

I looked from my baby’s eyes–which were looking around the room and taking everything in for the first time–to my future husband’s–which were bursting with more love than I had ever seen–and I knew it. I was a woman and it was awesome.

When did you first know that you were a woman?

So, what is it with husbands and alarm clocks? Specifically, husbands incessantly slapping the snooze button on said alarm clock? At least one of my friends has a husband who suffers from this same affliction (I know your dirty secret, Kev). Yes, I realize ladies are just as capable of this horrific habit. But I’m not concerned with ladies. I’m concerned with my husband and his alarm clock that won’t. stop. buzzing.

I have a few pet peeves. Unnecessary use of quotation marks, improper grammar, and people “axing” me questions are just three. But, lately, my husband and his damn alarm clock is the pet peeve to end all pet peeves.

Take this morning, for instance. Baby wakes up cranky at 5 am. Momma grabs baby, brings her into (already crowded) bed and attempts to drift back into the land of leaping sheep. While everyone else sleeps peacefully, Momma stares at ceiling thinking about the three emails she should write when she gets up, taking mental notes, and making to-do lists (all of which will disappear from her brain before the next thought emerges from the depths of its little wrinkles). Just as Momma starts to drift to sleep, the bed suddenly feels as if it is the epicenter of a small earthquake. The world’s loudest vibrating phone is the cause.

Let me take a brief second from bitching to say that this obnoxious vibrating is actually because my dear husband is trying to be nice and has set the alarm on his phone to vibrate instead of setting his obnoxiously loud alarm clock. His thought is that it will wake him instead of the rest of the occupants of his bed. Mission: failed.

The stealthiest ninja could tiptoe outside my house and I guarantee I would jump up all momma bear-like, ready to attack any impending threat to my babies. So no. Putting your phone on vibrate is not helpful to me. I could deal with it once. I could even handle two times. But by the fifth time your insanely loud phone begins vibrating on our bed, I want to leap over our sleeping children and punch you in your somehow sleeping face.

I am not a violent woman. In fact, I am a lover of peace and tranquility. I don’t like confrontation. But if you run into my husband in the supermarket and he has a peculiar bruise on his face, you can bet I finally clocked him.

Ladies, let’s talk lips. More specifically, let’s talk about breaking down and slapping a little color on ’em.

I had a couple of different conversations recently with other bloggers about how much good a little dab of color will do ya when it comes to your lips. Somehow this one minor step can bring your whole look together.

Where’s the proof, you ask? Why, it’s right here:

This is what I looked like trying to get out of the house the other morning before adding color to my lips. Disheveled. Wild eyed. In need of chocolate before the clock even struck 10 am.

Add just a dab of Revlon Colorburst lip butter in Tutti Frutti and poof! I’m an actual human being ready to emerge into a world where I may just run into other grownups. My lip color is by no means overwhelming. It’s subtle and shimmery but it tells the outside world that I’m more than just a house frau with a herd of wee ones hanging from my teat. I mean, come on. It’s even a coral-y color, which is so on trend.

In case you were wondering, this trick also works well on young children:

To make sure the magic wasn’t just in the lip butter, Samantha put on Cover Girl Nature Luxe gloss in anemone. As you can see, it was just as magical.

She enjoyed it’s smoothness and the fact that it made her lips more red than mine (which she told me in a little bit of a “nanny nanny poo poo” voice).

Lest you think this trick is a magical cure all for all creatures, don’t get ahead of yourself. Babies are a whole different ball of wax.

Elyssa emerged from the application process still naked with a drooly chin, scraggly hair and Burt’s Bees breath. Some things are just a lost cause.