Nope, I’ll never learn

There must be days when you read HouseGoesHome and wonder if I deliberately do daft things just so I can blog about them.

How else could so much melodrama be crammed into one suburban single mum life?

Today is one of those days.

This is a rush-job blog post because it’s the youngest’s 11th birthday and I have a breakfast function to attend for work. So I’ll give the Pookalooka a wake-up cuddle at 6.30am then light off.

The youngest’s dad will arrive a few minutes later to help her open her biggest, heaviest present before she gets the rest at a “separated family dinner” tonight. She’s currently angling for pizza.

Anyways, back to the idiocy of yesterday.

The youngest went through her favourite cookbook and decided she wanted to make caramel slice to take to school for her birthday.

I should have said “no”. But I’m not very good at saying no.

I wasn’t even deterred by her best friend piping up from the back seat – as we drove home from skipping practice – that caramel slice takes a whooooooooooooole day to make. Kids are SO prone to exaggeration.

I’ve never made caramel slice before. I didn’t look at the recipe carefully enough when I bought the ingredients and it quickly became clear I wasn’t going to have enough for 30 sugar-starved chilluns.

It also became clear that the recipe included ominous requirements such as “let set in the fridge for two hours then cover top with melted chocolate, then let set for another hour, then trace out the squares in the semi-set chocolate, then let set for another hour …”

The smarty pants in the backseat was RIGHT. Sigh.

By that stage we’d already made the base, so I felt committed to the midnight finish time.  There was just the problem of not having sufficient condensed milk for the extensive amount of caramel required. So I made a quick dash to the supermarket at 7.30pm for extra supplies.

Then I proceeded to fark the double lot of caramel up – I was letting it gently simmering away when all these brown bits started floating in it. Sob.

Next time I will be buying the bloody stuff ready made in a tin. Bugger that other nonsense.

This time, however, I was stuck with a prepared base and botched caramel. The local shops were shut, the next nearest shops had no undercover parking, lightning was scarily flashing and the rain was pelting down.

Luckily I remembered I had cupcakes frozen from last week’s aborted party, so I whipped them out and put together 30 vanilla cupcakes with salted caramel icing and smashed Maltesers.

I don’t think the smashed Maltesers have survived the humidity too well, they seem a bit chewy, but I’m hoping a horde of 11-year-olds won’t be too fussy.

It was at that weary moment one of my beloved offspring announced she had nits. I am new to the de-lousing thing, I used to be one of those smug women who’d somehow avoided the little bastards for the first decade of motherhood. That all changed about two weeks before my husband left and it’s been nit comb heaven ever since …. somehow always on the days I have the kids.

Two hours and a scribbled pie-for-birthday-lunch-order later I finally collapsed in bed, thinking all those blog commenters today will be right: BUY the bloody cupcakes next time. Except there won’t be a next time because both kids will be in high school next year and you don’t take cupcakes to class in high school, everyone gives you hugs (and nits) instead.

My head is itching. If you see me, don’t hug me, OK? Even though I need one.

Song of the day: U2 “The sweetest thing”