Do Arms Dream of Electric Whisks?

School Holidays essentially become a daily battle to:

a) see how long we can exist each day without resorting to screens of any kind

b) complete a) in the context of spending as little money as possible.

Today we reached 3pm before the television went on with its infuriating YouTube gaming videos. Apologies if I offend someone who actually produces these, but whilst playing a computer game for hours on end seems to me like an utter waste of life, watching someone else do it feels even less worthwhile. It's one of those generational things where my children turn to me, shake their heads, and tell me that I 'just don't understand'. Quite.

And I managed to do it all whilst only spending £4.42 on baking ingredients. Winning at life. So, today's activities included:

1. A continuation of the comic strip collaboration (between Eddie and Gilby) of Captain Mega and the Alien Invasion  (where the lid of a permanent marker being left off led to the, well, 'permanent marking' of a drying towel.

2. An Irish dancing practice session.

3. Starting the new jigsaw puzzle.

4. A game of chess that turned into who could twirl the pieces on their edge for the longest.

5. Several hours of trampolining. (Because it was a bit damp and drizzly, it required Eddie wearing 11 - count them - pairs of socks to stop his little toes getting wet.)

6. An extra washing load. See 5.

7. A banana cake, made by Gertie and Eddie

8. And, not to be outdone, a rival baking adventure that resulted in Gilby's first Victoria sponge.

The banana cake created the most mess, but also produced my favourite exchange of the day:

Gertie: Oh why is it taking so long to cream the butter?

Eddie: Because we aren't electric.

Currently reading: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

Birthday Know-How

Six years ago our lives were transformed, utterly, by the birth of Gertie.

Ten months of expectation and wonder, followed by a twelve-hour-induced-labour and too many stitches to talk about.

Then two more children, who also have birthdays.  Now I mostly bake cakes.

Who knew that the human body was capable of so much? (The cake-baking is the particularly impressive bit.)

Lunar Lunacy

This morning Gilby jumped on us in bed.  Of course, it was Saturday morning, so we get woken up extra early, because the laws of having children say that on days when you are able to have a lie in you actually get woken up at least an hour before you usually do.  Everyone knows that.  But this morning, he was excited to tell us about his dream. He dreamt that he was a grown up.  (How exciting is that when you are three?) And he was a spaceman.  Every boy's dream, no?  And not only that, but when he went up into space he baked cakes. 

So I am thinking that we will have the first lunar celebrity chef when he grows up; hooray! Move over Jamie Oliver, there is a new niche in the market.

The other good news is that our new au pair has arrived from Austria.  Let's call her Lady Visa.  Very efficient with the children, perfect in fact.  And they love her. But - vehicles seem not to be her friend.  She has been here for a week and a half, and so far she has managed to obtain a parking ticket in Guildford, and had to call out whatever the Austrian equivalent of the AA is to tow her out, since she got Rooney stuck in the mud at some lovely rural spot that she stopped to admire the view at. (Rooney because the car is maroon, not after the England striker; I'm bored of having to explain that.) And she missed the last train home from London, resulting in a midnight dash for my husband to collect her from the next station.  Still.  She seems to settling in well, just as long as transport isn't involved.

The Little Things

I went on a cake-decorating course for the first time yesterday.  Not really the type of thing I ususally do.  My husband is king of the kitchen, so I make only the occasional foray into the world of baking, usually just around the time of the little people's birthdays, and then I ususally make it up as I go along, often to the great amusement of my husband.   So the cake-decorating course was probably more about having a few hours to myself and doing something new. 

But thanks to a great teacher and lots of expensive cake-decorating toys, the results were astounding.  Look, I even made the roses!  By the time I was on my way home, (driving at 20 miles an hour to preserve my precious cupcake cargo) Gertie was due at a birthday party and Daddy had taken everyone with him, so I had a few more unexpected hours on my own.

Joy of joys - this meant that I could tidy the house whilst no-one was there to mess it up as I went along, (and admire the greatness of my cup-cakes in solitude).  Such peace.  I even read the paper.  It's the little things.

So for a little while I could pretend that I was one of those cupcake mums who has a tidy house and is in control of everything.  Calm down: I said, 'for a little while'.  By 4.30pm everyone was home, chaos ensued and the cupcakes were demolished in a hundredth of the time it had taken to create them. 

And we discovered that Gertie had head-lice...resulting in a mad dash to the chemist and the destruction of my smug, 'I-can-do-this-motherhood-lark' feeling.  See - it's the little things.

Five Years, Five Cakes

Hard to believe that my little girl is five years old. I still haven't quite got used to seeing her in her school uniform, all grown up.  But here is the cake to prove it. Slightly trickier than the 'number one' I made for her first birthday and didn't go far between the 25 kids who came to her party on Sunday, but I was pleased with the finished result.

Let Them Not Eat Cake!

In preparation for Eddie's baptism, we had to go and collect the cake the day before and deliver it to the party venue. As the picture shows it was a thing of beauty, a cut above my past efforts at Mr Bump, Peppa Pig and a Fairy Toadstool. As soon as they saw it, Gertie and Gilbert were desperate to try it so I had to explain, quite forcibly, how special it was, and how we'd have to wait until it was time to cut the cake after the baptism. There would certainly not be any cake-eating before that moment I intoned sternly, pushing visions of a half-munched cake firmly from my mind.

When we arrived for the party holding a newly-Christened Eddie aloft, a lovely buffet was set with the cake as the deserved centre-piece. The children soon piled up their plates with party food. Gilby kept coming up and anxiously asking if it was 'cake-time' yet. Eventually I said that it was and he looked mightily relieved as he reached up to take the final fairy cake from a nearly empty plate.

What a lesson in noble restraint. It seems that my sermon had hit deeply. He had waited all that time, thinking that he couldn't have any cake, watching all the other children repeatedly helping themselves, desperately willing the final one not to disappear.

Things That Go Bump in the Kitchen

Another year, another birthday, another mess in the kitchen, another baking triumph (but don't look too closely, it's a little, er, 'rustic' round the edges).

Yes, Gilby was two last week, and with a few days to go before the event he announced that he no longer wanted another train cake, but 'Mr Bump'. Good, I thought, at least it's round. Though blue was not the most appetising colour for the, mostly adult, guests at his tea party.

Pregnancy hormones must be kicking in big time, because I also MADE bunting for the occasion. I saw some for sale at the primary school fete and thought, 'Twenty quid for a couple of metres? Pah! I'll make it!'

So, having invested in a sewing machine and a selection of fabric, I reckon my bunting has set me back over £200. Oh well.

But the little man was on top form, dressed in shirt and tie for the day, and even going as far as to sit back up in bed, more tired than I've ever seen him, just after kissing him goodnight to say, "Thank you for my party, mummy," in the sweetest, most angelic little voice.

Now, lest all this sound too good to be true, and I'm even sickening myself with the homely baking and bunting imagery, let me just pronounce, for the record, that the terrible twos began in earnest the very next day as Gilby kicked and screamed and demanded, "More presents, more presents, more presents..." for hours. So domestic bliss was short-lived...

34 Weeks pregnant: Definitely not feeling the bikini body...
Currently reading: That Summer in Ischia by Penny Feeny

The Unbearable Excitement of Being

Gilby has 'hand, foot and mouth disease'. A 'febrile illness(caused by Coxsackie Virus) with associated vesicle formation on the hands, feet, and mouth of affected children'. It began with a few chicken-pox-type spots around his groin area, and it sounds much worse than it is, but it did mean that the very first day of my holiday yesterday was spent in the company of a screaming, irritable child. It is mild and short-lived though, so I am hoping that by tomorrow (his second birthday) he will be a little more sociable. He wants a 'Mr Bump' birthday cake, which seems quite appropriate.

Thankfully, Gertie is a little cheerier, and her perceptions of the world continue to delight. She is very, very excited about the arrival in a few weeks of her new sibling. It will coincide with starting school, so her little world will turn upside-down, but she is ready for it all. Except that she did ask me a strange question this week: "Mummy, you know that baby in your tummy? What clothes is it wearing?" I can't escape the image of a fully-dressed foetus in there now.

She also made me smile when she came across me reading in the bath a few nights ago. "Um, Mummy? What exactly are you doing?"
"I'm reading a book. I find it very relaxing in the bath."
She looked dubious, and glanced over at the vast array of brightly-coloured plastic toys that adorn our bathroom these days, and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to hide for my sojourn into the water.
"But Mummy, how can you possibly relax in the bath when it's so exciting? I don't know how you can just sit there when there's so much to do!"

Well, who knew?

33 weeks pregnant: Struggling to heave my whale-like proportions around.
Currently reading: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Magic Mushroom

It is that time of year again. Gertie is four at the weekend.

We have the party and the celebrations sorted. I finally managed to persuade her that the North Pole wasn't great at this time of year. So, she will have eight friends from nursery trailing round the local farm park with her in the morning; a visit that will culminate in a picnic lunch. Then, in the afternoon, we have planned a tea party with all Gertie's cousins and family. Hooray! Not a husky or an arctic explorer in sight.

Now this is all jolly exciting, except that it means I am forced to make my annual trek into the kitchen where I pretend that baking, icing and decorating comes naturally to me, and produce a cake to rival Jane Asher.

Last year's highly successful Peppa Pig appeared to be the pinnacle of my culinary achievement (well, when one's husband has appeared on Masterchef, one doesn't get much opportunity to experiment in the kitchen...) but I feel that I have topped it this year, even though it was fairy tricky:

Kitchen Confidential: Operation Peppa

There is a long list of domestic things that I am not very good at. Sewing is quite near the top, closely followed by ironing. But cake-baking is right up there too. In fact, the legendary 'cricket pitch' cake I made for my husband's birthday a few years ago was immortalised by the comment, "Why is there a salmon on top?" in relation to the shortbread cricket-bat I had lovingly crafted by way of decoration.

But Gertie will be three at the weekend. And so the dormant domestic-goddess lurking deep inside me was determined to bake the perfect 'Peppa Pig' cake. I knew I needed to make it in several sections and so I began making sponge on Tuesday evening. Something went wrong (I blame Nigella and her insistence on adding milk) and the mixture wouldn't set properly. It wobbled out of the tin into a crumbly mess. Close to tears, I did what any other self-respecting woman would do, and phoned my mum.

She came to the rescue as mums do, and arrived at my house this evening with several sponges already prepared. All we had to do then was cut them up into the shape of Gertie's beloved Peppa and roll out the icing.

Simples. And personally I was delighted with the end result. I have surpassed all previous efforts. Dare anyone even make reference to green icing or fish-shaped cricket bats on Saturday at the party.

What a shame that the recipient of the cake doesn't look that impressed then...