Why I Should Always Wear A Wooden Plank Around My Neck...Or At Least A Wood Bead Bracelet

I love the idea of teacher appreciation week, and I think making desserts is a great way to celebrate, but because nothing at the kids school can be easy, this always turns into an ordeal. They don't want cookies on a plate. They don't want a box of doughnuts. They want full on gourmet desserts presented in a classy way, (no paper plates) but you don't get anything back, so it must be displayed on something you are willing to never see again.

The teachers draw numbers and they go in order and pick out what dessert they want. No one wants to be the dreaded last dessert on the table. The "pity" dessert, if you will. Last year I did cake pops in a flower pot, but this year I wanted to try cupcakes. Cupcakes beyond vanilla and chocolate. Cupcakes that make other cupcakes cry in envy. Cupcakes that wouldn't be picked last for the baseball team (or whatever cupcakes play).

I made Hot Chocolate, Strawberry Lemonade, Red Velvet, Cookie, and S'more flavored.  Good-bye waist.

I decided to try 5 different recipes (because I have a stress related death wish) so I could find just the right recipes to present. Of course finding the ingredients required for gourmet cupcakes in Scottsbluff is as easy as finding Tonks when she escapes out the front door, so I spent most of the morning going from grocery store to grocery store. By the time Livi and I got home from morning errands it was lunch time. We have lots going on at our house this week, and because I don't want the other joy school moms/insurance interviewer/cub leaders to see my house in all it's natural glory (I swear evil elfin brownies drop off all the junk they clean from other people's house right into my living room), I spent a couple hours cleaning up around the house, got the kitchen spic and span, and then went on a baking spree.

 It was a well oiled machine in my kitchen. I would bake a batch of cupcakes, and while the next batch was baking I would make the icing for the last batch that were cooling. Things were running so smoothly and I was so happy with how easy it was to make 100 cupcakes that I should have stopped to knock on wood. It turned out I hadn't bought enough red food coloring or powdered sugar so I had to make frantic phone calls to Eric begging him to pick some up on the way home. By the time he got there I had a pile of egg shells and butter wrappers that would make Paula Dean gag in horror, soup on the stove for dinner, and french bread in the other oven. Eric surveyed the mess and calmly walked by with no comment.

 Livi came running around the corner to hug Eric and promptly slipped on the floor. This is when life went from organized chaos to full on pandemonium. Eric offered Livi a hand up and she squirmed and tried to pull away. All of a sudden we had a 3 year old screaming in agony. She was clutching her arm to her side and making noises I have never heard from her before. I was running around frantic saying we needed to go to the ER and Eric was grimacing (I think he was thinking about our deductible) and trying to tell Livi she was okay. Livi didn't believe him so I forced Eric into the car and off to the ER we went.

When I went to the ER with meningitis it took 8 hours from when I went in to when they released me.  It took 2 hours from when they ordered X-rays to when I actually went to have them taken. We have found the trick to a short ER visit: Screaming Toddler.

Livi showing off her stickers for doing so well with the X-rays

With in 5 minutes of us getting there the Orthopod Doctor had popped Livi's elbow back into the socket. A few minutes later she was getting X-rays. We were there for less than an hour overall. Once Livi's elbow was back in place she immediately stopped crying. It was like a little switch had been flipped.

She is totally fine today, no pain, no swelling, just 100% rambunctious little girl. We even had joy school this morning and by the way she was attacking our tree with a lightsaber you would never guess that she couldn't move her arm last night!