Catching Up

So sorry the update has taken so long. I simply have not had the energy to sit down and write. Rather than writing one very long entry that explains our happenings of the last few days, I’ve decided to break it down into one entry per day. In other words, don’t stop reading once you hit the bottom of the first entry today. (I started writing this update on Tuesday and am just now finishing it).

Zoo

We wanted to do something fun with Chloe to celebrate her birthday. First of all, we had a hard time deciding. We don’t exactly live in a place where there are a wide variety of things to get out and do. We figured we would be driving a little bit to find something. The second problem is that there aren’t many things that are appropriate and exciting to a toddler. So we settled on the idea of going to the zoo. We talked to my parents and made arrangements to meet there on Saturday.

It started out a cold, dreary day. It was only supposed to reach 62 degrees and was very windy all day. We all bundled in layers so we would be comfortable no matter what the weather did. Luckily by afternoon the sun came out and made it feel much warmer.

On the way to the zoo I asked Chloe what animals she wanted to see. I suggested the elephants and zebras (both are animals she recognizes in books), and she said giraffes. First we went to the sea lion show. That did not go well at all since Chloe has very recently developed a phobia of water. We thought she just didn’t like her baths anymore, but I guess it’s a water phobia now. She liked it when the sea lions were doing their tricks on the stage but got very upset whenever they went into the water. Mom ended up holding her and watching from the very top of the bleacher seating. The next animals we went to see were the zebras and giraffes. She thought those were pretty neat.

It went downhill from there. Basically the remainder of the zoo trip was “NO”. If anybody tried to take Chloe near glass so she could see an animal, she said no. If an animal had any kind of water in its exhibit, she said no. Almost every exhibit was a no. At the end of the day we finally made it to the part with the elephants. At first the elephants were a no because of the water in the exhibit, but Kevin was finally able to get her excited about them.

I think Chloe really enjoyed spending the day with Grandma and Grandpa. She just didn’t enjoy the fact that it was spent at the zoo. Three animals to get excited about: giraffes, zebras, and elephants.

Doesn't she look thrilled?

Tantrums and Baking

Sunday brought the “terrible twos” a day early. Church was a battle of wills: Chloe vs. Mommy. The only thing I heard of the sermon was the first couple introductory sentences and then somewhere in the middle there was something about a lion. My girl who usually sits so nicely in church acted like a little terror. Sure, she wasn’t running down the aisle or screaming, but I walked away from church with some new bruises.

The remainder of the Sunday was much the same. Chloe was very tired since she didn’t get a nap in on Saturday and I had to wake her up for church that morning. She fought sleep at naptime, so the remainder of the day after nap was spent just crying and whining. Great fun. Even when we put her down to bed for the night, she screamed for an hour and a half before finally falling asleep.

I also had just a little issue with the birthday cake. In all fairness, it wasn’t my fault. On Saturday Mom gave me a recipe for a real apple cake in stead of a cake that uses applesauce. I chopped my apples, mixed my ingredients, floured my pans, poured the batter into the pans, and put my cake in the oven. All was going very well… until there was a knock on the front door. It was our neighbor letting us know that a power line had snapped and was lying on the ground right behind our car. He wanted to make sure we didn’t go near it. Very kind neighbor. We had a little excitement on our street as the police came and blocked the street for a while. Then I guess they got the all clear from the electric company saying it was dead or something because the police left before anybody showed up to fix it.

Anyway, what does this have to do with the cake? After all, it didn’t appear that our power was affected at all. About 20 minutes into the 40 minute cook time, our oven started making clicking noises. Shortly after that it stopped working. It stayed off for a little over an hour while the power line was being fixed. My cake was baked in two stages. We had no idea how it was going to turn out. After taking it out of the oven and attempting to put it on a cooling rack, we determined it would just have to be served out of the pan. There was no way that cake was coming out in one piece. So much for a two-layer round cake. We would have to wait until Monday to see how it tastes.

Birthday

Happy Birthday Chloe! The day started by having to wake up Chloe so we could get to my doctor’s appointment on time. We had the morning packed pretty full -- go to the doctor followed by Aldi shopping and an oil change. We got home and had a very late lunch of macaroni and cheese. It was quick to make and one of Chloe’s favorite meals. After lunch came naptime. This was not a success on Monday; Chloe decided just to scream the whole time she was supposed to be resting.

During “nap” I got busy making the frosting for the apple cake. First let me prove that this really was an apple flavored cake:

See the light colored chunks? Those are apples.

Originally my cake was going to have red frosting and have some kind of fake stem sticking out of it so it also looked like an apple. With the cake stuck in the pan I had to forgo the stem and rely on the red frosting. Here’s the cake after it was frosted:

If the cake appears pink, you need to adjust your monitor. Everybody knows apples are red. Okay, I had put red food coloring in until I began to wonder if too much food coloring was bad for you. There was a LOT of food coloring in there. I was hoping I could convince my daughter it still looked like an apple. Then I had a brilliant idea. I got out the sprinkles we used for Christmas cookies and started pouring. Here’s the end product:

Not much better, but at least there was some red on it.

Chloe got up from nap a complete crab due to the lack of sleep. While supper was cooking we got out the presents for her to open, but she wasn’t interested. She absolutely refused to open them. I finally coaxed her into helping me open them. This was really our only time to open the presents since there was Bible class that evening. Every gift ended up being a “no”. it was very sad to see her acting like that.

For supper we had decided to have one of Chloe’s favorite meals: her Grandma Koester’s casserole. Luckily the meal was still a hit this time. Grandma Koester even called at this point to wish Chloe a happy birthday. A mistake was made in getting out her birthday cake around 6:45. Chloe looked at the cake and immediately called it an apple cake; God bless her. Kevin lit the candles and she immediately tried to blow them out without any prompting. The three of us (Grandma on speaker phone) sang to her, she blew out the candles, and Kevin sliced up some small pieces.
Chloe took her first bite and I anxiously awaited her approval….

Success! The apple cake was a hit!

Remember how I said it was a mistake to get out the cake? We didn’t think about how long it would take to eat a piece of cake. Chloe didn’t get to finish her cake before it was time to leave for Bible class. That brought on another tantrum, which I can understand completely. I would have stayed home with her to let her finish her cake if there hadn’t been another cake waiting for her at church. Somebody had asked permission to bake a cake for Chloe to share during class. Once she got to church and saw the other cake everything was fine. Everybody sang to her again, and there were more candles to blow out. This time she wasn’t interested in blowing them out at all. But she did enjoy her cake.

All in all it was an interesting day. Don’t worry, Chloe has since to come to love all of her gifts.

Apple Cake

Our little girl turns two on Monday, and I can hardly believe where the time has gone. I still vividly remember sitting in the NICU with her and all of the emotions running through me when we brought her home from the hospital. I look now at Julia and realize in the blink of an eye I’ll be writing about her second birthday and considering schools for Chloe. It is all very sad.

A few days ago at the dinner table I (half jokingly) asked Chloe what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. She looked at me and very clearly said “apple cake”. So here’s my question for all of you: Who has been feeding my daughter apple cake? To my knowledge she’s never had such a thing. Where in the world did she come up with such an idea? Kevin commented that it would be tasty, but it was left at that. Yesterday I asked Kevin if I should just make a regular box mix cake, and Chloe quickly piped in again with apple cake. Mind you, it’s been a couple days since the cake has been discussed and she still remembers. I started looking to see if I even had a recipe for apple cake. All of our recipes call for nuts. So I looked at Chloe and asked if she wanted a chocolate cake or a yellow cake. Normally she repeats whatever we say, but not last night. Apple cake. Eventually I found a recipe for an applesauce cake. I know that ultimately she wouldn’t care what kind of cake she gets, but Kevin and I both agree that it would be pitiful if I made a chocolate cake and she looked at it and said “apple cake” again. Tomorrow I will bake the birthday girl’s wish.

On a different note, Chloe threw us for a loop yesterday. After eating a good supper I got out some cookies for her. She looked at them and just whimpered. She loves those cookies. She asked for those cookies. But when she got them she just whimpered. The same girl who asks for cookies for breakfast (by the way, who started that?). The same girl who asks for cookies as she’s going down for nap. The same girl who answers “cookies” anytime the question “What do you want” is asked. Whimpering over having cookies in front of her. She never did eat them last night.