Day One Hundred Sixteen

Remember when my boss' boss said we "need to prepare for winter, not a snowstorm" when it comes to this whole COVID-19 thing? That seems even smarter now than it did 3 months ago. In some ways, I started doing exactly that at the beginning of this all. In other ways, I have kept acting like the sun will come out tomorrow and this will all be over.

(If you don't have the Annie song stuck in your head now, you're a better person than me.)

The sun isn't coming out tomorrow.

And, thus, I'm starting the process of teaching Mila how to exist in this new world. The kid is notorious for making bad choices, so we're starting simple. We're learning how to wear a mask anytime we're anywhere near other people. We're also learning to STOP FREAKIN TOUCHING EVERY DAMN THING ON EARTH, KID.

Yeah ... um ... soooooo ... that touching thing is a challenge for her. A normal shopping trip with Mila includes her rubbing her grubby little paws over every single thing she encounters. It has ALWAYS been an issue, to the point that she doesn't even have to be with me and I will mutter, "Stop touching everything" as I walk through a store. I'm sure strangers think I'm perfectly sane. Doesn't everyone talk to invisible kids while they're putting toilet paper in their shopping cart?

But now that we live in a COVID-19 world, it was time to get REALLY serious about the stop touching things routine. I figured we'd try to figure it out while going places that were generally low risk. Hikes at state parks was our first adventure.

So it turns out Mila isn't allergic to poison ivy. That's what we learned from that. CLEARLY the "No touching" thing was going to be a heck of a challenge for her, especially since Mother Nature didn't seem to want to punish her for breaking rules.

We talked about it a whole lot more and I laid out one very specific threat - "If you want to be able to go shopping with me, you have to learn to keep your hands to yourself."

The kid really loves shopping. A lot. She doesn't care where we shop; she's game for absolutely everything. I think the thing she misses most about all of *this* is going to the mall, if we're being honest. She's stupid happy walking around a mall and looking at (and touching ::sigh::) every single thing.

I needed to buy her more masks (she's doing really well with the masks thing - she considers them a fashion accessory), which meant I needed to go to Gap Outlet. They win for masks for small people, for what it's worth. They actually fit Mila while no other ones do.

So I let her go with me. We chatted on our way in about how we were going to keep our masks on and not touch anything unless we were buying it. Mila agreed that the rules of engagement were reasonable.

AND THEN SHE SUCCEEDED. The kid was stupid obvious that it was causing her stress to not get to touch anything because she kept standing with her hands on her hips with her forehead scrunched up like she was trying to use telekinesis and make objects fly into her hands. I think she had a whole story worked up about how it wasn't her fault she was touching something because it attacked her, but then nothing attacked her and she managed to leave without touching even one thing.

It was a Christmas miracle.

Since then, I've taken her to the zoo ( ... if you're thinking about it, don't. I need to work on getting a refund for our membership because they aren't enforcing mask rules and it is an all around bad scene) and the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden (a much better experience) and both times she was incredibly mindful of the rules and didn't touch things.

It only took a global pandemic, but finally the kid is learning to keep her hands to herself. I'll take it.

Day One Hundred Fifteen

Twenty or so years from now, a whoooooole lot of today's kids are going to be PISSED and rightfully so. Once they are parents themselves, they're going to look back at this whole thing and wonder WHY THE HELL ARE SO MANY OF Y'ALL PUTTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR MAKING HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES ON YOUR KIDS?

I'm serious, y'all.

Let me give you an example. There are several running threads of people asking questions about what we're going to do with school cheer this year. For the high schoolers, it's already a done deal. We've already been required to pay a hell of a lot of money for a season that isn't going to happen because heaven forbid the kids stand on the sidelines at a football game in anything other than matching ($$$) track suits. I threw $500 to the wind a month ago and with every passing day, it becomes closer to certainty that it was money wasted.

Little kid cheer, though. That's a whole other drama. For the record, Mila will not be participating this year. She wants to, I said no, she's cool with my decision. It was actually a very easy conversation, but then again I routinely dose my kids with, "That's my decision and you're going to have to be okay with it." Am I in the minority? Because I'm seeing a heeeelllll of a lot of parents who are posting, "So ... what are we doing with cheer this year?" on social media and most of the responses are something like, "Clara really wants to do it so I signed her up."

WTAF IS THAT NONSENSE? Why are you delegating YOUR job as a parent to an 8-year old? Clara probably wants to glue wings to a llama and fly it to Glitterland as well, but are we giving her that choice?

Now is exactly the time when you have to be willing to tell your kids they can't always get what they want.

I get it, of course. It sucks to be a parent right now. Not a single one of us signed up for this whole thing and we absolutely get to spend the rest of our lives knowing we parented at the hardest time to parent in generations. Our parents may have walked uphill both ways in the snow as kids, but we had to make decisions in the time of COVID-19. THIS CRAP IS HARD, Y'ALL. I say that as someone who spends a lot of her professional life mitigating risk and shooting through narrow doorways of opportunity. I can read scientific documents better than average and have access to crazy amounts of COVID-19 data because of what I do for a living. Still, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. Every decision feels like the weight of 80900 elephants and I can only imagine how much harder that has to be for people who don't make big decisions every day. It's confusing and it's hard and it's not going to get better anytime soon.

That doesn't mean you get to turn to your kid and say, "Well, what do you want to do?" What do you think is going to happen when it all goes bad? Are you going to mourn the loved one who died while looking at Clara and saying, "If only you hadn't gone to cheer ...?" I'm really serious. It is completely unfair of you to put any of the weight of this situation on kids.

They've already had a piece of their childhood stolen. Even if you live in an area where the number of cases is low, things are different. I honestly think the kids are all going to be okay, in part because what's been taken from them is unknown to them and because they will adapt, but don't take more by putting decisions in their hands.

Just stop.

And don't use "Well, my kids really want to ..." as your excuse for why you're doing something that you know very well may not be safe. It's not fair. It's not right. It's time to put on your grown-up pants and make decisions.

We can all agree that it sucks making those decisions, but here we are. We're all in it together.

Day One Hundred Fourteen

Alexis is doing a phenomenal job of keeping good food available in our kitchen, but she's slacking at the cupcakes. Cookies are more her thing, which I think just means I need to post more cupcake recipes. Eventually I'll come across one she won't be able to resist.

Let's try this. Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes.

Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

(makes 24 cupcakes)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Blackberry Buttercream Frosting
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup blackberries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one lemon
5 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with super cute liners of your choice.

2. Place the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir them up with a whisk.

3. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla.

4. Put the wet ingredients in the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix at low speed until just combined.

5. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke at a cupcake.

6. To make the frosting, place all but the powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for about 30 seconds then at higher speed until the blackberries are well mashed. Slowly add the powdered sugar and keep mixing until it's all combined and happy.

7. Top your cooled cupcakes with that frosting then top it all with a bunch of fancy sprinkles. Bonus points if you add a white chocolate star on top, but that's not really necessary.