As you can see by this picture, which I also posted yesterday -

- we have a issue with legibility.  And color.  And space.

I ordered the cake the Sunday before the party from the local Dairy Queen (Thrasher’s Corner, for those of you in the know).  I think DQ ice cream cakes are particularly tasty.  I’ve had some quibbles with their decorating before, but since I was getting an edible transfer put on the cake, I didn’t think there would be any issues.  I did order a smaller cake than I usually do – an 8″ round (they don’t usually do rectangular cakes), but again, I wasn’t foreseeing any problems.

Until Ane and I showed up Saturday afternoon to pick the cake up.

The shift manager brought the cake out, and my jaw dropped.

I had requested that the writing say “Happy Birthday Tad” in blue.  Which they had done.  Except that the “Happy Birthday” was written right on the transfer and was almost impossible to see at a distance.  The flash in the picture above did a decent job of highlighting the gel icing, and “Tad” was written on the white of the cake, below the transfer.

When I asked, “What happened?”, the shift manager sort of shrugged and said, “Well, the transfer is kind of large and it took up too much space, so the decorator had to write on top, and you did request the blue writing.”

“But you can’t even SEE it!”  I cried.  “It could at least be in a contrasting color!”

“But you asked for blue,” she replied.

“I realize that, but I wasn’t told that the image was going to be too big for the cake when I ordered it!  Why didn’t anyone call me when this became a problem?  My phone number is on the order!”

Apparently, she realized at this point that I was not going to go quietly with the cake.  “If you have 15 minutes, I can maybe put some red gel on top of the words to make them stand out more,” she offered.

“I don’t have 15 minutes, I have a bag of ice in the trunk of my car,” I snapped.  “If I’d just gotten a call, I would’ve probably told you to just leave the writing off, but now it’s on there and can’t be scraped off.”

At this point, Ane tried to put her two cents’ worth in and say that it wasn’t so bad, but I elbowed her in the ribs and told her to hush.  Mommy was on a rampage.

“I can give you a discount, and I’m really very sorry about this.  You’re right, you should have gotten a phone call.  I usually do the cakes, but the night manager did this one.  I would have called,” the shift manager said desperately.  “And I’ll talk to my manager about this.”

“Good.  I need the cake, and I will take the discount.  But I have to get going, NOW.”

Two minutes later, I was out the door, cake in hand, Ane in tow, having paid $11.80 for a cake that should have cost me $25.95.

Now, I should say that Tad did not care about the writing one bit.  He didn’t even care if his name was on the cake.  All he cared about was that it had Batman on it – which it did.  But it was the principle of the thing that I was fighting for.  That, and the fact that the customer is always right, and for crying out loud, they couldn’t bother with a phone call??

So, note to self for the future – check the size of the transfer picture as relative to the size of the cake next time.  Or just skip the writing altogether.  But always be willing to get what you ordered – or get a substantial discount to make it worth your aggravation.

Rerun was the youngest family member there, so naturally he was a big hit.  He was too excited to actually eat much, and he spent most of his time leading Papa on a merry hunt for sticks.  There were LOTS of sticks at the park.

Ane made a new friend… and this one is a many-times-removed cousin.  Ella is four, and had a soccer ball with her.  Ane was only too happy (after a week at our church’s sports camp) to play with her.  This was yet another example of how Ane is very much her father’s daughter – it takes so little time for her to make a friend.  The girls had a very good time playing together, and I was lucky to get them to stand still for a minute to snap this picture.

Tad was a little bored with it all.  After a couple of walks with Ane and Nana through the woods (which we had to keep him from going into on his own – the last thing I need is to lose him in the woods) and eating his lunch, I brought out some new colored pencils and a Cars coloring book that I’d brought along.  This pleased him, kept him in one place, and kept him out of mischief.

There was plenty of mischief being created by Rerun, anyway.  There was a large supply of chewable sticks.

Our cousin The Principal was supposed to be at the picnic… but she came home from a vacation sick, and gave the bug to her younger son, so they weren’t there, much to Ane’s disappointment.  The Principal’s parents were there, and made her excuses for her while I chatted with them.  So, I get to give her jazz about missing the picnic for yet another year.

The weather was quite pleasant, and once the picnic broke up, it was still early enough in the day that we decided to do a little shopping at the outlet mall in Centralia.  With that one stop, we finished the majority of Ane’s back-to-school clothes shopping, and Ressis got a phone call from me that began like this:

“Help!  I’m in a Coach outlet store and I need help picking out a new purse!”

Somehow, she didn’t have any trouble taking that challenge on.  And now I have a much-needed new purse.

Between the picnic and the shopping trip, it was a very full – and fun – day.

And who is that I spy in front?

Yes, that is Ane, with her doll Susan, and her friend Lisa, with her doll Kayleen.  (I think that’s her doll’s name, but don’t quote me.  Not sure on the spelling, either.)

A brand-new American Girl Place opened up at our local mall.  The location, according to American Girl’s website, is Alderwood, Seattle.  And all the locals rolled their eyes.  The store is in LYNNWOOD, people.  Call it “Seattle” all you want, but the only thing it has in common with Seattle is the sales tax rate.  The new store is placed right near the play area at Alderwood Mall.

The “grand opening” was this last Saturday and Sunday, but the store itself opened for business last Wednesday.  Auntie called me from the mall on Thursday and said, “Did you know the store is open already?”

I immediately called Lisa’s mom, and the girls hit the store that evening.  The big up side: we avoided the crazy mad rush over the weekend.  The down side: there was a private event going on that night, and all the customers got kicked out of the store at 7 pm.  The girls spent money before we left, though, as you can see by the bags.

The store itself is every little girl’s dream.  It is full of the dolls, displays of dolls and their clothes, a doll hair salon, a doll T-shirt shop, and a small bistro and party room.

Guess who is already begging to have her birthday party there?  And guess who verbally agreed to it?

At least I won’t have to think about that until December.

And Ane is already looking for ways to earn more money, so she can go shopping again.

Goodbye, old car.  You served your purpose for over 10 years.  I can’t say that you always served us well, or that you didn’t refuse to start a few times when it was terribly inconvenient…

So long, old car.

Hello, new car!

THAT is our new car!  It was time.  With the Webmaster taking business trips to Portland with surprising regularity – he’s there again this week – the reliability and safety of our old 1998 Ford Contour was definitely in question.  And to top it off, the driver’s seat no longer adjusted at all.  Best as the Webmaster could figure, the seat’s frame had actually broken and was stuck in place.  Not safe.

So, after some shopping around, we finally settled on a 2011 Ford Fiesta… which we bought on Friday!  And the Webmaster promptly drove it down to Portland last night.

Ane is in love with the new car because she can ride in the front seat.  The passenger side airbag turns off when someone lighter sits in the passenger seat, which means that with a booster, Ane or Tad can sit in the front.  It’s a very cool feature.  The Fiesta handles beautifully and is very… blue.  The Webmaster had wanted black or silver, but no luck on those fronts.  I actually like the blue, and the color wasn’t a big deal to me.

So, welcome, new car!  I hope that you’re a little more reliable than your predecessor, and that we can keep you around for the next 10 years.

Okay, that’s a lie.  I needed cupcakes, and I needed to be able to bribe them with cupcakes.  There.  Happy?

So, after piano and dinner at Friend’s house (thank YOU, Friend!!), I packed up the kids and drove them out to our favorite cupcake shop, Trophy Cupcakes, at University Village.  Their cupcakes are SO good.  We’ve tried other cupcake shops in the area, but none get it quite right (and one got it very wrong, but that’s another story).

Ane is a HUGE fan of cupcake bakeries, thanks to watching many an episode of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network.  So she lost no time telling the girl at the counter how much she loves the store, and wants to have her own cupcake shop someday.

I smiled and said, “I told her that she should just get a job here.”

The girl at the counter who was ringing up our order looked at Ane and asked, “Would you like a job here?  You can start tonight by mopping the floors.”

I got the feeling that she was only half-joking – especially when she said, “That’s usually my job at closing time.”

Ane thought it was pretty funny.  Tad got in his funny moment when he said goodbye to the cashier – “Bye, Girl!  Have a good luck!” – which is Tad-speak for “have a nice day” and “good luck” all rolled into one phrase.

But then Ane told me as we were driving home that “I think that I’d want to bake cupcakes, not mop floors, Mom.”

“That’s not how it works, Ane.  You would have to start at the bottom and work your way up.  You would have to apprentice yourself to the job.”

“What’s ‘apprentice’ mean?”

“Hmm.”  I thought for a moment, then hit upon the perfect analogy – one she would completely understand.  “You can’t become a Jedi without being a Padawan first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you got a job at Trophy Cupcakes, then you’d probably start out with mopping the floors.  Then you’d move up to washing dishes.  After you prove that you can be trusted to do those things well, then you’d start learning to bake.  It’s like becoming a Jedi.  You start off as a youngling, then you become a Padawan, and after you’ve learned enough, then you face the trials and become a Jedi Knight.”

“Ohhh, I get it.”

And she did.  She even repeated my explanation to her father over the phone before bedtime.

I love my little nerdlings.  And now Ane understands that you don’t get the top job without doing the bottom work first.

And if she’s looking for a floor to mop to practice on, the kitchen floor is waiting just for her.

However, each time we go in, she discovers something else that she is willing to eat that she would’ve never tried if I’d served it to her.  For example, we were buying the beef and chicken taquitos, along with some salsa verde.  All of those things were at Ane’s request, and she learned to love them all because of the samples.  Trust me, when she tried them the first time and declared that we HAD to get them, I almost dropped in a dead faint.  It is like pulling teeth to get her to try new flavors and foods.  (Speaking of pulling teeth, she lost another one yesterday at school.  Guess who now has her name twice on the big tooth on the nurse’s office door?)   Last night at the sample “bar,” they were serving up little paper cups of their beef bourguignon with a red wine sauce and vegetables (it comes in their frozen section).  She ate it without complaint, but then raved over their spiced apple cider.

Yes, I bought the apple cider.

As I was describing our shopping trip to the Webmaster, and why we came home with apple cider, I said, “Ane is a sucker for a good sample.”

Overhearing this, Ane said, “I wish they would have suckers for samples.  That would be awesome.”

She’ll be here all week.  Try the beef bourguignon.

Marshmallows over a campfire?  Fine.  S’mores?  Nope, no graham crackers.

Popsicles?  Yes.  Ice cream?  Mostly yes.  Cones?  Not unless they are gluten free.

There are many alternatives out there in the form of rice pastas, GF pizza crusts, and there’s even a GF teriyaki sauce that I found.  But we still haven’t found a really good bread.  But Tad likes plain rice cakes, so I just make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of a couple of rice cakes.

So I took the kids with me to Central Market, a local natural foods grocery store, after a play date yesterday.  And it was like finding the Holy Grail of gluten free foods.

Frozen waffles!  Hamburger buns!  Bagels!  Pizza crusts!  DONUTS!!!

I was so excited I called my mother from the frozen food section to say, “I just found gluten free DONUTS!!!”

It was a big moment.  Because as soon as I was done shopping at Central Market, I marched the kids across the parking lot to the best local independent doughnut shop in the area, FROST Doughnuts.  Where I promptly bought donuts for those of us who are not on the GF diet.

And after lunch, everyone – including Tad – got a donut as a treat.

The GF donuts are frozen, so they are supposed to be kept in the freezer and then thawed and zapped in the microwave as needed.  And they came six to a box, so this treat will last a while.

I also got pizza crusts (I’ve become quite an expert at making a good personal cheese pizza for Tad), and frozen waffles (which the Webmaster would often make on Saturday morning for breakfast as a special treat – and real maple syrup is gluten free).

Though Tad may not really notice, I am trying to make things as “normal” as possible for him.  My only hope is that it really will make a difference in the long run.  And if not… at least he’s discovered rice cakes, and this experiment hasn’t tasted like cardboard for him.

On one hand, this was kind of nice to have on hand, so we could purchase things as they came on sale.

On the other hand, the list was INSANE.  Here’s what it contained:

- Backpack (check, she’ll use the same one she had last year)
- 1 pair scissors (fine)
- At least 20 #2 pencils, plain yellow, sharpened (Who needs 20 pencils at one go???  And already sharpened?)
- 2 pink pearl-type erasers (okay…)
- 15 white or clear glue sticks, not liquid or blue type (Um, many of the glue sticks sold nowadays for kids are the purple glue kind, especially the one that go on SALE.  And 15???)
- 1 school box (no problem)
- 4 dry erase markers, not yellow (Okay, I understand the color request… but 4??)
- 1 old, clean sock to use as a white board eraser (the kids use little white board slates at their desks – they did this in kindergarten, too)
- 1 large package of baby wipes (Uh-huh)
- 1 package 24 count crayons (yes)
- 1 box 200 count Kleenex (sigh)
- Boys: 1 box sandwich sized Ziploc bags; Girls: 1 package white paper plates

Then at the bottom of the list, it says “Optional: markers or colored pencils, for use with the whole class” and “Children are expected to replenish their supplies as necessary.”  Yes, the word replenish is actually emphasized on the note.  It’s also noted on the glue stick part of the list that they are a “replenish as needed” item.

Um, I don’t think Ane is going to burn through 15 glue sticks in the first week of school, or 20 pencils.  I know what is happening.  Some things, like the scissors, school box, the sock and the crayons will probably stay with the first grader for the whole year.  The other stuff?  Yeah, RIGHT.  It’s going into a communal pot, so the kids who don’t bring stuff in will have stuff on the first day.

What bothers me is that they’re not even bothering to be honest about it.  Look, I know budgets are tight, so we’re providing the Kleenex and the wipes and plastic bags and paper plates.  I have major issues with it, but that’s the way things are.  What I hate with a capital H is the “replenish as needed” line, because they are pretending that YOUR child is going to be the one who burns through all these supplies, and then the kid comes home saying “I need more (fill in the blank),” even though you know darn well that the kid has not used up 15 glue sticks.

Now, I know that times are tough and the economy stinks.  I also know that the district does a school supply drive every summer to try and offset some of these needs.  And I also know that they did NOT promote this supply drive to the families before school ended – the only reason I know about it is because it was on the district’s website.  And I also know that while the teacher might know which parents are being freeloaders, they also know who has responsible and responsive parents who will send in supplies.

I want to help.  I resent being forced to by having to oversupply my child in order for someone else to skate by.

But I have everything on the list purchased and ready – or at least I could pull it from my supplies and be ready.  And school starts September 1st – less than three weeks from now.  The back to school season is in full swing.  I hope everyone is ready for it.

(Cue the Jaws theme.)

We usually throw some kind of barbeque along with Tad’s birthday party, because it’s summertime, we have a large enough backyard to enjoy that, and the Webmaster can grill.  And the weather usually cooperates.  Ironically, it might rain on Saturday – at a minimum, it will be cloudy.

I took the kids to Costco yesterday morning to pick up party food – hamburger patties and buns, hot dogs and buns, sliced cheese and other various items (like plastic cutlery) – and we all lived through the shopping trip.  I was rather proud of myself – we were in and out within an hour.

Last night, after dinner, I took Ane with me to Fred Meyer to try and get the rest of what I needed.  Specifically, cake mix.  Since Tad is eating gluten free, I needed to get some gluten free cake mix, and he had asked for chocolate.

Which they were out of, naturally.

I finally was able to flag someone down to ask if there was any more in the store.  The person I flagged down found the person in charge of the nutrition section, who initially tried to hand me an organic cake mix.  I politely corrected him and showed him the spot on the shelf where it was supposed to be.  He checked his scanner gun and clipboard, and went off to see if there were any in the warehouse.  I called Grandma to fill her in (we were discussing other possibilities for cake mix purchases), when the guy with the clipboard came back.  He informed me that yes, they were out, but there was a shipment coming in that night and it should be in there.

“Could you find out for certain?”  I asked.

“Oh, you want me to check on that?” he asked.

NO, I AM JUST ASKING ABOUT IT FOR MY OWN HEALTH AND AMUSEMENT, NOT BECAUSE I ACTUALLY NEED IT.  “Yes, I would like to know for sure that it will be here before I come back tomorrow,” I said calmly, resisting the urge to take said clipboard and smack him with it.  When he left, I did facepalm myself.

Finally, I got the thumbs up.  Yes, there will be gluten free chocolate cake mix on the shelves after the shipment arrives and is unpacked.

Tad really doesn’t ask for specifics in food that often, and the gluten free diet does curtail what he can have.  So I am trying to give him what he did ask for, because it is his birthday, and because this is something that he can have.

Of course, asking about the cake mix – and controlling a dancing Ane who Cannot. Keep. Her. Hands. To. HERSELF – totally threw me off my game.  Let’s just say that my list was a little incomplete, and I’ll need to pick up a few more things along with that cake mix today.

And if that cake mix is not on the shelves today, I have the guy with clipboard’s name committed to memory.  Let’s just say that there will be trouble in River City, with a capital T, which rhymes with C, which stands for Cake.

Tad saw us buying them and immediately knew that the “blue sharks” were for him.

And the second we walked through the front door, he wanted those “blue sharks” on his bed.  Yesterday, if possible.

So, guess who stripped his bed and immediately did a load of laundry?  Yes, that’s right… ME.

When he crawled into bed last night, the Webmaster asked Tad, “Is it like the ocean?”

And Tad grinned and replied, “Look, Daddy, Tad in the ocean!”

Now, the sheets are twin-sized, and he’s still in a toddler bed, so it took some creative folding to get the sheets to work (mostly) properly, but we wanted him to be able to use these sheets for years (plus PBK didn’t have the shark sheets in toddler size, anyway).  And no, he still doesn’t have a proper comforter or quilt, so he’s still using his fleece Tigger “blunkly” and his Clone Wars fleece blanket as covers on his bed.  Of course, with warm weather coming, he really won’t need the fleece blankets.  However, I recently purchased three yards of great white shark fabric.  Then Grandma and I went to the fabric store to find some coordinating pieces.  He’s going to have a shark quilt made just for him before too long.

He’s already seen me wash the great white shark fabric, and then saw me folding it up with the other fabrics.  When I placed them all in a bag, Tad pulled the fabric back out of the bag to gaze at and admire.

“Tad, please put the fabric back,” I told him.

He hugged the fabric to himself.  “Mama, you share the great white shark?”

“Yes, buddy, I will,” I promised.

Guess I’d better get cracking on that quilt, or I’ll be in real trouble.