Bisquick Adventures, Part 1

I really wasn't joking about my new cooking adventure. Chatting with a (kid-free) woman in my tennis class last week, she told me she had baked a pecan pie. My mouth watered, eyes blazed with jealousy. I used to be her before the boys came into my world. How I loved perfecting the homemade pie crust, sending the screw-ups to Robbie's work to be devoured by his co-workers.

As each boy tumbled into the world, there was less room for the time spent flinging flour across the kitchen counter. Sure, I have my yearly attempt to create an awesome birthday cake, that normally results in a chaotic rendition of the boys' latest obsessions, be it trains or Scooby Doo. But baking for no occasion at all--not happening so much.

Last week I poked around the pantry to come up with something that would pass as a dinner for the family. I found the Bisquik and immediately remembered going to an aunt's house for the night and waking up to her rolling out homemade biscuits which she baked then set out with a flourish along with her own canned jams. How hard could it be?

It turns out, not so hard after all! It really is 'quik' to throw together the three ingredients. Kneading and rolling it out so much easier than the tempermental pie crusts of my past. The only problem being that I rolled out the dough a bit too thin, resulting in most of the finished products resembling hockey pucks or sugar cookies.

And how did the family react to my breakfast for dinner?

Bobby gobbled down three biscuits layered with butter, jam and honey. Shane insisted he only wanted peanut butter on a spoon for dinner and humored me briefly when I snapped shots of him preparing to take a bite. He never even tasted it.

So a mixed review. The boys still have yet to sample the bisquik chicken fingers, strawberry shortcakes and waffles. Stay tuned.

Cross-Bloggination

Why not?

What better excuse not to work on the new manuscript but to journal online?

I am now among the many fabulous artists that contribute to Eric Maisel's Creativity Central blogs. Although I only committed to posting on alternating weeks, I plan to post more often. Which means I will also have to post more here to keep it fair. My brand for the Maisel blog is Musings Among Valley Vineyards, and will mainly have posts about the creative process, writing life, blocks and tiny victories. The Pollard boys will steal the show on this blog, so come by both blogs often and tell me what you think!

Look for my new series of posts later this week about my adventures with recipes on the back of the Bisquik box.

And no, I'm really not joking about that....

Of Mice and Little-Rebel Men

The Pollard household is in chaos.



I blame the heat. The dog refuses to eat until late afternoon, the boys refuse to listen. There is the constant echo of name calling (Bobby, you a doodle-brain! Shane-y, you a poop!) And so my days roll out in endless heated waves behind me.



The boys thrash the house faster than I can pick up. I've confiscated full Lego sets and hot wheel racetracks, television time and superhero costumes. All because they refuse to put them where they belong. And of course, they don't even care! See the smoke blowing out of my overheated ears.



The climax of my all-time summer low came a couple days ago. After hours of playing referee and clean up, I finally jumped on much needed chores. Wiping down bathrooms and stripping beds, clearing out toys so I could run the vacumn. As I reached under the kitchen cabinet to combine the bathroom garbage with the kitchen's, a lethal mouse the size of a small dill pickle leaped onto my foot and scrambled in terror around in circles.



Of course, I didn't see where he disappeared to. You see, I was to busy screaming at the top of my lungs, knocking over the garbage can, running toward the back door, and losing my balance, slamming my knee and twisting my foot on the unforgiving cement floor.



The boys were amused.



I was crying and shaking. Who knew how terrified I was of a tiny little mouse. I did play Cinderella in a middle school play after all. I sang the Dream song to fake mice on stage, for goodness sake! Yet, we've had mouse issues before here in Pollardville. One noted example was after I put the boys to bed. Robbie was gone at a hockey game (do the mice plan on freaking me out by waiting for the man of the house to be gone????) As I walked down the hall with a load of laundry, our black cat came bounding in with a baby mouse in his vice grip teeth.



Luckily, I was close to the bathroom and did the only smart thing: I locked myself in there, hyperventilating and resting my forehead on the cool walls. I ventured a look out the door and the cat sat in the middle of the hall with a satisfied smirk, no remnants of the mouse remaining.



The rest of my night was spent dodging the cat, terrified of his mouse breath. Do I overreact a bit? Perhaps.



An old friend I message every once in awhile on facebook commiserated with me then sent me this link, saying at least this didn't happen:


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,378142,00.html


I couldn't agree more.



Now, I make Robbie deal with the garbage if at all possible. And if he doesn't, the kitchen cabinet gets a firm kick every time I go to toss something in the garbage, to give the little mouse time to escape into the wall before I open the door.



P.S. Don't suggest mouse traps. Yes, Robbie does set them and we even catch mice occasionally. Yet the sheer terror of hearing the tell-tale snap of a trap pushes me over the edge as well. I'd rather the mice family just stay hidden in the walls, but that's just me.

How Far We've Come

Another milestone moment to open the month of July:

Just weeks after Bobby's very moving preschool graduation, complete with diplomas and gowns, we lived through another, more dreaded milestone...the five year old physical.

Most moms remember this check up years after they have survived it. I even remember my own 5 year appointment because it is defined by the attack of the vaccines to ready the poor, unsuspecting child for kindergarten.

I struggled with whether to tell Bobby the truth about receiving shots. Plenty of parenting magazines throw out advice on this topic, most leaning toward not 'fessing up about the upcoming pokes. Although guilt racked my body, I erred on the fib. When Bobby asked if there would be shots, I kind of shrugged my shoulders and played dumb, warning him that 'I believed' all 5 year olds needed shots to be allowed into kindergarten, but we could ask the Tickle Doctor the rules. This seemed to satisfy Bobby, though he obsessed over the shots the whole afternoon. (Another word of advice: I didn't even tell him about the appointment until just hours before so he didn't have time to dwell like his poor mother did.)

Driving to the office, my mouth watered and I eyed my grown up boy sadly in the rearview mirror. Doctor visits of our past welled up in my mind, especially those milestone visits where he was still a helpless baby with pleading eyes, looking at me like "How could you let him do that??" after another series of vaccines.

We made it through the physical with flying colors. Bobby even peed in a cup on demand--probably his favorite part of the visit! Then it was the wait for the medical assistant with that clattering tray of pain. When he walked in, Bobby's eyes grew as wide as dinner plates when he saw six shiny needles rolling around among the debris of cotton swabs and rubber gloves.

In the next room, a fresh newborn squalled with terror. You know that distinct newborn cry, more resembling the pitch of an alien than a chubby baby? Tears stung my eyes as I remembered the day Bobby came into this same office for the dreaded circumcision.

But in the now, I held this stronger, verbal version of Bobby in my lap as he tried to bolt for the door. I hugged his arms to my chest like a straightjacket and watched each needle pierce his milky skin with tears in my eyes. We managed to survive all six pokes without major bodily injury to any involved, though I was sure Shane would get thrashed in the mix of all the chaos. Then we emerged, teary-eyed, to retrieve stickers and zoom over to the all-healing McDonald's for an early Happy Meal dinner.

Relief flooded my body as Bobby and Shane jumped around the McDonalds playground like nothing had happened. We've come so much further than that grumpy, underweight baby that survived this ritual years before.