Caked in cake - and not in a good way

I have noticed of late that my life only ever seems to speed up. I'm thinking that there should be ebbs and flows, but I haven't noticed any ebbing in the last 10 years or so. Am I perhaps missing something? The baby seems to have accelerated by about 20 miles an hour in the last month, for instance. There is not one day this week when he has not done something either dangerous or messy, often both at the same time and generally at the last minute before I am due to go on the school run.

On Wednesday, for instance, he managed to find some vegetable oil and empty the entire contents on the floor in the one or two seconds that I was dealing with either another child or a kitten or perhaps a guinea pig [the guinea pig is looking a bit peaky at the moment and I have been feeling slightly guilty that this might be my fault. I don't know why as I am the only person in the entire house who looks after him and no-one else seems to suffer any guilt feelings at all]. This spillage occurred seconds before the Tesco delivery arrived. I greeted the Tesco man with hands full of grease and a look of utter harassment. He looked slightly scared [the woman at the library actually said the other day "I always think you look rather harassed". This is because the library is the least calm place to be with a toddler! It has shiny new bleeping machines and lots of DVDs which can be posted down slots in shelves and automatic double doors that lead straight to certain death on the high street].

I digress. Just as the Tesco man was leaving [running away] daughter one appeared and immediately asked what was for dinner. "Vegetarian mince and spaghetti," I replied. "I'm on a health drive." [Daughter one has been worried about the bacon and processed meat content of her diet after reading about the links to cancer]. "Not pasta again," she said disconsolately. Huh, you can never please all of the people all of the time.

Feeling totally underappreciated I retired to reclean the kitchen floor until my partner arrived and I passed on the baton and escaped from the madness to do some work. The following morning the baby was at it again. I had everything under control and was even being a good mother, cuddling daughter three which I don't get to do much of a morning, when disaster struck. Daughter one had caught the bus, daughter two had exited to choir with her dad, everyone had their lunchbox [daughter one missed the bus on Monday and forgot her lunchbox on Tuesday], the baby was even dressed and the kittens were all present and accounted for [one went missing on Monday]. I was getting dressed when I noticed that Baby Alive looked like she was covered in chocolate. "I swear I put Baby Alive upstairs just 10 minutes ago," I said to myself, "and she was totally clean at that point. How did she manage to cover herself in chocolate icing?"

I looked around. Aha! I spotted cake crumbs. The baby had found a slice of chocolate cake, indeed chocolate cake that he had helped to make, and had been trying to insert it in the DVD player. He was literally caked in cake. There were five minutes to go till the school run. Naturally, we arrived on the cusp of lateness [the door was just closing, but I consider that on time] and I delivered him to the nursery with chocolate all down his front and wished everyone a good weekend only later realising that it was only Thursday. It is just that I long so much for the weekend that I am trying to make it arrive just that bit quicker.

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