Salad Troll

Living with a 4-year old is ... well ... I can best describe it with a story.

There is a cafeteria at my office and while the food at said cafeteria is pretty much awful, the salad bar is a solid life choice. Thus, I often grab a salad for lunch. On this particular day, the chaos was raining sideways, so I never quite got around to eating much of that day's salad.

No big deal. I would take it home for dinner.

It was sitting in the front seat of the car, happily awaiting my undivided attention, when I picked Mila up from school. Somehow, the child can use her laser beam eyes to penetrate the seat that is supposed to protect her little brain from knowing what I have up front with me. She used her superpower to identify food and promptly began asking about said food.

"Is that a salad, momma? I love salad!" she said in her absolute cutest voice because of course she did.

"Yes, it's a salad," I replied. What was I going to do, lie? I knew she was about to ask to have my salad. That is Chapter 1 of The Guide to Being Four. It starts with "steal your parents' food as often as possible, even if you don't really want it."

Whatever. Once the question was posed, I gave the kid the damn salad. There is more where it came from and whatever. I will not put my life on the line for a salad, and fending off a hungry four-year old is the most life-threatening situation I can think of.

She opened the lid and starting poking around. "Are these olives? I love olives!"

There went the olives. It's too bad they're the best part of any salad.

"What's this?" Mila asked, while holding up a cucumber.

"A cucumber," I replied. Of course.

"I don't like cucumbers in my salad," she retorted.

"Well, that's fortunate since it's MY salad. Can I have it now?" I asked.

::whine::

"What's this?" Mila asked, while holding up a craisin.

"It's a dried cranberry," I replied. "Can I have it?"

"No," Mila answered and then, "I don't like cranberries in salad." She said it while chewing on a cucumber, so.

"What's this?" Mila asked, as if my only reason for having a salad was so I could introduce her to each of the ingredients.

"A sunflower seed," I replied.

And then Mila fell off the deep end into an emotional breakdown because HOW DARE I PUT SUNFLOWER SEEDS IN MY OWN SALAD. There were tears and everything, and they weren't even mine.

In the middle of sobbing, Mila popped a sunflower seed into her mouth. Because isn't that what you do when you're sad that a food exists? You eat it, right? OBVIOUSLY.

"Oh, wait," Mila said between sobbing gasps, "I like sunflower seeds. I forgot."

And then, "I don't want salad for dinner! I want macaroni-n-cheese!" Mila declared just before she tried to launch the salad through the car.

I stopped her in time.

But only becasue I've been living with a 4-year old for a few months now. I kind of know what insanity to expect. (Hint: ALL OF THE INSANITY.)

I'm Never Leaving, Am I?

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT, MILA.

Ahem.

Miss Mila has been a co-sleeper for like ... a long time. Go ahead and judge me and blah, blah, blah. I can take your mocking, especially if it makes you feel good about yourself. When it comes to sleep and tiny people, we can all use all of the good juju we can get, even if it's borrowed at someone else's expense. The thing is Mila is a GOOD co-sleeper. She goes to sleep easily and she leaves me out of whatever shenanigans come up during the night.

THAT is the key. Alexis was the opposite - she wanted me to be in the front row cheering her on as she struggled to stay asleep for more than ten minutes at a time. She also felt the need to wrap herself around my head while she kicked me in the chin.

Those were the GOOD nights. We won't talk about the bad nights.

So this thing where Mila's only expectation is that she will be able to rest her hand on your back all night? It's so good. That's really all she wants. She hasn't woken me up in the middle of the night without good cause in a long time.

It's the same "long time" since she stopped sleeping in her own bed, so.

Regardless, I wasn't complaining. I was getting sleep without a tiny person blasting chaos at me and IT WAS GREAT. We could have kept on that way for another several months, with my only goal being it probably should come to an end before Mila starts kindergarten. That seems reasonable.

But nooooooooo. Mila decided she was going to disrupt the whole thing now.

Out of nowhere (and by "nowhere" I mean "ALEXIS WAS TOTALLY BEHIND THIS. DAMN THAT KID FOR ALWAYS SCREWING UP MY SLEEP"), Mila got it in her head that she was going to sleep in her bed. Which, whatever. I'm not going to tell her no. I don't think. Actually, at the rate things are going, I just might.

Night one.

On night one of Mila Sleeps in Her Bed, Mila made it very clear that her expectations were that she was going to sleep in her bed and I was going to sleep in the chair in her room.

NOPE.

I love the kid to pieces, but I'm not giving up a nice comfy bed. I am not meant to sleep upright. So, I figured I'd let Mila fall asleep and then I'd take a little walk.

GUESS HOW THAT WENT!

Of course, every time I thought Mila was sound asleep, it turned out to be a trap. She was quietly lurking, just waiting to see if her prisoner would attempt an escape and then KABLAAM. She would pounce.

I got in a lot of trouble every time I tried to leave.

Eventually I got away, but not until after I had my life sentence extended by a few years. And then that only lasted about two hours because HOOBOY WAS MILA MAD WHEN SHE WOKE UP AND REALIZED I WASN'T THERE.

Mila burst out of her bedroom, staggered down the hall, and belligerently yelled about "Mommy's not in my room" as if it was the worst of sins. I am going to Preschooler prison for a very long time because an early escape is simply unacceptable.

Night two.

We're repeating the scenario. I am, at this very moment, sitting in the chair typing away on my laptop because Mila won't let me leave. I thought she was REALLY super asleep about half an hour ago but then the words, "Sit back down now," came drifting through the dark and I'm scared.

I'm scared.

My four-year old just may destroy me if I try to leave. It's a legit problem.

Aunt Mae's Apple Cake

One of my favorite things about recipes handed down through families is how those old recipe cards assume you have a clue. For real. Our grandparents made the assumption that we would know what to do with a list of ingredients and three vague steps. Which, maybe. It depends on if our parents taught us.

Hahahahahalolomg.

My mom didn't teach me anything. She couldn't boil hot dogs without burning something.

And yet! I still managed to survive this!

That's my Aunt (in-law) Teresa's Aunt Mae's recipe (I'd figure out what being the aunt of an aunt-in-law turns into, but LAZY). I totally stole it from a Facebook post because every once in a while, Facebook serves a purpose, like giving me a recipe to use up some of the apples the girls picked.

The girls LOVED this cake because it was super gooey and moist and filled with apples.

I'm just glad I didn't totally ruin it.

Aunt Mae's Apple Cake

Cake ingredients
1 cup cooking oil (vegetable oil, I'm guessing)
2 cups sugar (let's go with granulated sugar)
3 eggs
2 cups self-rising flour (all-purpose worked fine for me)
3 teaspoons baking powder (added because I used all-purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt (added because of the all-purpose flour substitution)
3 cups chopped fresh apples
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Frosting-ish Topping (runnier than a frosting, but thicker than a glaze)
1 cup sugar (granulated, again, I think)
1 tablespoon white syrup (My guess was white corn syrup. It seems to have worked.)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 stick butter (she said margarine, but I ignored her *lalalala*)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon soda

Cake instructions (I mean, who needs instructions? NOT AUNT MAE.)

1. Dry ingredients go together and get whisked. That would be the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

2. Other cake ingredients get mixed together in a separate bowl. That would be the vegetable oil, eggs, and sugar.

3. Mix the moist ingredients with the dry ingredients. It should come out pretty thick - the moisture from the apples is going to take care of that, so don't sweat it.

4. Fold in the apples, raisins, and nuts.

5. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" baking pan. Bake the cake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Set aside to cool while you make the topping.

Topping Instructions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan.

2. Add the sugar, corn syrup, and butter. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the vanilla and baking soda, stir quickly, and remove from heat. By the way, Mae didn't mention this, but when you add baking soda to this type of mixture, it quickly boils up and tries to explode out of the pan. That's why you're removing it from the heat right after adding it.

4. Place the topping in a medium mixing bowl and mix at high speed until it thickens some more. It took me about 5 minutes of mixing to be happy with it.

5. Pour over the cake.

6. Allow it to cool a bit and then ZOMG IT IS SO GOOD WARM.