Twitchy

Wanna know why I am really not a good mom? I can't relax when it comes to doing fun stuff with the kids.

Today we made cookies. Well, that's only half true because we actually made the dough last week but because I am a dumbass and didn't realize you need to chill the dough overnight, we had to delay rolling and cutting them out.

The making of the dough was quite stressful. It started out beautifully, with Jack and Emmie bellied up to the island helping dump various baking stuffs into the mixing bowl. But then Emmie started trying to climb on the counter. And Jack kept sliding his chair around. And I can't count the number of times I uttered the words, "That's it, you're not making cookies anymore."

So we finally got around to the rolling and the cutting and the baking today. I am pretty sure I will require hospitalization after the events of this afternoon. Perhaps a nice quiet psych ward; someplace I can calm the eff down.

Again I get everyone set up at the counter and I roll out the dough. Once it's thin enough, I hand each of them a cookie cutter and show them how to cut the shapes. Now I realize they are 4 and 2. I realize this intellectually. But in practice? How hard can it be to just cut a damn shape out the right way?

Jack takes the star-shaped cutter and slams it down in the middle of the slab of dough. OK, perhaps not the way I would have started out, but whatever. I offer to peel the dough away and put it on the cookie sheet and he screams that he can do it by himself. All right, all right. Keep your Thomas underpants on.

He grabs the dough, tearing all the points off the star and throws it on the baking sheet. Not just my eye, but my entire body starts twitching. I actually say, "That's not how you do it! Now it's all broken. Does that look like a star?"

As I am schooling him in the proper layout and lifting of dough, I look over and see Emmie lightly pressing the bear cutter all over the surface of the dough. Not enough to cut through it, mind you, just enough to make little marks all over. I wrestle the cutter away from her, ignoring her screeching protests of "Emmie! Emmie! Emmie do!" I show her how to press down on the cutter, and secretly press it down before showing her where to put her hands, therefor saving myself from feeling like a hot poker has been stuck in my eye when I watch her do it wrong.

Jack starts banging the spatula against the wire cooling rack, making enough racket to wake Maeve in the next room, and I tell him no less than three times that's he's not going to help with the rest of the cookies because he's not listening. Each time he desperately tells me, "I want to make cookies!" and then continues to not listen.

He proudly squishes the middle of every cookie, making misshapen bears that look as if they had more lipo to their midsections than Heidi Montag. I want to cry. After Emmie grabs the knife and waves it around laughing, I shoo everyone away from the kitchen and quickly cut out the next dozen and place them on a tray. The right way.

When they come out of the oven, Jack and Emmie are so proud of their creations and I feel like an ass for being such a perfectionist. I effusively praise their cookies, telling them what a good job they did. Hey, I feed them the line about a man with flying reindeer coming down the chimney once a year, I can lie with the best of 'em.

Yet again, real life intrudes on the idyllic Norman Rockwell scenes of motherhood. This is exactly why I don't let them have playdoh in the house, either. Not only would it be ground into the crevices of my hardwood floors, but they would probably mix the yellow and the red and green all into one big ball and my head would pop off.