Good Mommy points

Today is Diva's 10^th birthday. The sweet child is so different from me in lots of ways. She's more girly than I am, but not excessively so, which helps. She is very outgoing, loves to be with people, and absolutely loves a good party. And a good party is one with lots and lots of friends in attendance. She's got great spunk and creativity.

I, on the other hand, don't do well with lots of people all around me like that. For a while, yes. On a good day, probably. But I need an escape, at least a short break to collect myself. Not Diva. She's in the middle of everything.

She wants to have a grand birthday party. I can't do it. I'll do what I can for her, when I can, but I can't give her the birthdaypalooza she wants.

I think she had a pretty good day today, though. I bought her birthday presents at least a week ago, had them all wrapped up and "hidden" in my room. (She knew exactly where they were.) Light left a gift for her when she was here for Thanksgiving. She's been happy anticipating the gifts.

I didn't see her at all this morning, as she was still sleeping when I left for work. I was a bit concerned that I hadn't done enough to make her day special. Then I had an idea. I used to take cupcakes to her class on her birthday when she was younger, but that doesn't seem appropriate now in 4^th grade. But she's at day care after school, and they have snack time anyway… So I baked a cake in an oblong pan to take to the day care before I went to work this afternoon. I also baked a layer cake for us to have with the family celebration tonight.

The day care cake needed some help from Superman. I got the cake done, but time ran away from me and I didn't have time to take it by the day care. I also didn't have any frosting. So I called Superman to assist. He stopped by the grocery on his way home from work at lunchtime to pick up a can of frosting. He then took the cake and the frosting to the day care. I told him to just leave the frosting with the cake, not to try to frost the thing himself. Well, he did try, he said, but he was making a mess of it. One of the other gals there took over and made it beautiful.

Diva was delighted! She gushed thanks upon me when she got home. I felt good. Definitely good mommy points on that one. Extra bonus points because it was a surprise to her.

Then of course there was the other cake. And I made frosting from scratch for that one. (it didn't work real well, but tasted good anyway.) While I was mixing up the frosting I also figured out what to have for dinner and put that together. Understand that I rarely cook anymore. Superman does the bulk of the cooking, with S cooking quite a lot too. I'll do the "special" meals like Thanksgiving, etc. Every so often I'll do a roast & veggies thing. But daily cooking is something that has fallen by the wayside. Superman has had a rough couple of days and is tired and stressed. So I came up with a casserole thing that I thought tasted pretty good. You know what? I don't even know what Diva's favorite meal is. Or if she has one. I know about Twitch and Light. Sproing is blissful with anything pasta. But I am not sure what if anything Diva prefers.

Other things I accomplished today:

• Put our bed sheets in the wash, and Superman helped me re-make the bed this evening. Clean sheets! That's another thing I don't do often enough. I love sleeping on clean sheets, though, and he does too. We got out the flannel sheets. Yummy.
  
• Put away the pots and such from two plastic bins, one of which was a huge box. We've been slowly repainting our kitchen cabinets, one section at a time, and these were the dishes from the first section. The painting was finished a few weeks ago. I needed the cake pans that were in that box, so that was my motivation.
  

And here's a re-cap of the good mommy things:

• Baked TWO cakes for Diva's birthday.
  
• Surprised Diva with the cake at after-school day care
  
• Cooked supper for the family
  
• Got the kitchen table cleared off so we could all eat together around the table
  
• Bought presents for my birthday girl, had them wrapped ahead of time
  

Doing all the supper and supplementary stuff kept me in the kitchen, in the public parts of the house with my kids when we got home. Many evenings I go to my room and sort of hide from everyone. They come visit me, the queen on her throne, and I take care of their little concerns, usually delegating the leg work to others. I'm not all that involved with the nitty-gritty details of family life. Tonight I stayed there, out of my nest, in the midst of my children. That was definitely a good mommy thing. And it is the second time I've done it within a week. The first time wasn't so good. There was much strife. Today, though, it was much better. I kinda missed my little nest and seclusion, but I'm glad I stayed with the family. It was the right thing to do, and I feel very good about having done it.

And throughout the evening Diva kept saying this was the best birthday she's ever had. *sigh* It feels great to be appreciated. It happens so rarely!