Tippy Toes and Tantrums

I Blinked, He Turned Six

This picture popped up on my screen saver yesterday, and the timing couldn't have been better:

It makes me laugh because the look is so Clover. She's been pretty unsure of babies until just recently, and it doesn't seem like that long ago that she finally accepted that she has a younger brother and he's here to stay. 

My baby is six today, and while I love everything about watching him grow, six is kind of a weird spot. When Clover was a toddler, I'd look at five year olds and think, "wow, that is mature. Five is old." But five isn't old. Five still needs to have his hand held when crossing a street, and while five can use the bathroom alone, too much time in there alone surely leads to soap suds (or worse, pee) on every surface. Six feels like we're really crossing over from tiny kid who needs his lovies to sleep to bigger kid who plays more with baseballs, footballs, and wooden swords more than stuffies. 

The nostalgia surely comes from the fact that I'm packing up the house for our remodel, requiring me to evaluate each toy as to whether or not he'll care about them in six months. I packed the large German trucks into a box, the trucks we researched and splurged on long ago, and he pushed around the house, yet sadly, the trucks may not need to be unpacked. We erred on the side of innocence, packing away more toys than we gave away because he may still want to play with his Fisher Price castle or the magnetic building pieces, but he may not. Six months is the near future for us, but for a six year old, six months is a good chunk of life. Packing the toys away may be more for me than for him. I'm not ready to let go of the trucks, or it turns out the dollhouse, which we've decided to save for the distant future because we can't stand to see it go. 

Six brings new toys and fun. We let him open an early birthday present before he went swimming at his grandparents' house this week, and he yelled out, "I GOT A SNORTLE!" That is six. Ready for a snorkel, but not quite getting the name right on the first shot. He corrected himself soon after, even though I kept calling it a snortle, because, as usual, mom's not ready to let the baby stage go. 

This kid is amazing. He is sweet, funny, fun, adventurous, kind, and each day, would eat his weight in fruit, if we'd let him. He brings me so much joy, and I love him with all of my heart. Thank you, baby, for still holding mama's hand. 

Easy, Everyday Ice Cream Cake

Thank you COOL WHIP for sponsoring this post. Join us on Facebook for inspiration and recipes for everyday treats. What you add makes it. #coolwhipmoms

This is one of those recipes that tastes impressive, but it's a teensy bit embarrassing when asked for the recipe because that means it's time to acknowledge that the super tasty dessert took no time at all to make. The mess is next to nothing, too, making this one of the greatest desserts ever. It's a family favorite, introduced by my cousin Margie, then copied by my mom, and now by me. The best part, is because it's so simple to make, it's easy to serve on a summer night when you want to surprise the kids with a treat or maybe when a few friends some over for a barbecue. 

It starts with minimal ingredients:

• COOL WHIP Whipped Topping
• ice cream sandwiches
• toffee pieces
• caramel or chocolate sauce (or both) sauce

Layout the ice cream bars on a platter or baking dish. How big the dessert depends on the number of bars you use. I used 12 bars total, which should easily serve six. Because we're a family of four, we'll have leftovers, which is always a plus.

Next, spread COOL WHIP generously on top;

Sprinkle with toffee bits;

Repeat.

For the top layer, before I added the toffee, I drizzled butterscotch caramel sauce on top, then added the toffee and mini chocolate chips. Margie and my mom usually only drizzle chocolate on top, but I love any excuse for caramel. 

Now, the hard part: let is set up in the freezer for as long as you can, which in our house is usually only 30 minutes. 

Once set, just cut into it like you would any other cake. It’s the perfect layered cake, just made with ice cream and COOL WHIP instead of, well, cake. 

If you let it freeze significantly before serving, let it thaw a little before cutting into it. 

Finally, stand up and take a bow because you're family will be applauding you!

It's a great summer dish, but it works any time of the year, even at the holidays, but that could be because to me, COOL WHIP tastes like Christmas. My mom would always keep a few tubs in our freezer, which was really the greatest prank because, as kids, we'd spot the COOL WHIP, sneak up and open them up, ready to run our fingers through the soft clouds and scoop it into our mouths, but we were foiled by the freezer. This dessert makes up for those times!

Do you have a special dessert you'd like to share? Enter COOL WHIP's Fan Dessert of the Month Contest for a chance to win $500! Simply make a COOL WHIP dessert, take a photo, and upload it here. Enter now!

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor. Advertisers do not produce the content. I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all my own.

This is What My Office Looks Like

Few things make me giddier than secretly seeing someone else's clutter. I love when people post a picture on Facebook with the caption, "Bebe loves playing the xylophone," or something like that where their child is the center of the photo, but all around the child is clutter. Not just a few papers, and not enough to be on Hoarders, but enough to make me feel good about my house. None of my photographer friends do this because they're savvy enough to note the background when composing their photos, but enough people I know do this, where they assume we are all focused only on the subject (the kid and the toy) and not on the stacks of crap piled up everywhere in the background. Those are the best. It answers my question of how some people have a lot more free time than I do. 

But, here is where I explain the chaos in my head, and why right now I'd like nothing more than a quiet corner and the ability to go deeply into denial. This is my office:

Try to find Waldo. Yes, We're using Girl Scout cookie boxes for storage. 

I know, right? Yesterday, I tripped over the shoes and fell hard onto my desk, which is exactly the type of disaster they predict on Hoarders. (I know it seems like I'm obsessed with the show, yet while I haven't watched it in at least a year, it gave me the credentials to point out signs of hoarding.)

The state of chaos is because we're packing up the house for the remodel. I'm optimistic it will begin in the next month, but I'm less optimistic about getting everything packed. As the permitting process has lagged on over the past five months (seriously, they should offer Xanax when permit applications are filed in San Mateo County), I've kept focused on the end product to keep me going, but now, my fantasies are strictly about getting all of the stuff out of the house and safely stored somewhere. 

In the meantime, I cannot think with clutter everywhere. Just now, I needed to make a copy of something for school, but it took me five minutes to uncover the copier, then after, I realized that in the process, I had lost the forms that the copy needed to accompany, which required more time to look for them. When I'm not tripping over shoes, I'm looking for a paper that I just saw two minutes ago, but is now missing. This is my hell. 

In other news:

Yes, my kids are still in school until Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. Until then, please refrain from telling me how great it is to sleep in now that summer has started. 

We have a deer living in our backyard. Sure, she goes away for hours at a time, but she comes back every single day to spend most of her time outside my office window. Not only do I work among piles of paper, but I get that creepy feeling of being watched. Because I am. By a deer. 

I've relaxed into my summer uniform, which is Lands' End v-neck t-shirts, and jean capris with a rolled cuff. For the people who see me regularly, I have several pairs of these pants. Please note the difference in back pockets for reassurance that I'm not wearing the same pair every day. This is my first step toward moving from a dresser and a closet to a single plastic tub to hold my clothes during the remodel. Hobo chic. 

The Bakery is Now Closed (Thankfully)

Rocket's class Bakery is over, thankfully. I love the idea, what it teaches kids, and the beauty of it all, but making nine dozen baked goods is a royal pain and watching my labor go underpriced is a dagger in my tired heart. 

It's the type of bake sale where a $1 can buy enough desserts to cover a small birthday party. This is Clover's loot on her second visit last week. No surprise, she got sick later that night. 

(The Bubble Tape container is her makeshift wallet.)

Last week I made four dozen cupcakes, three dozen Rice Krispy treats, and two dozen Trix Krispy treats. I don't want to see another marshmallow for months. 

A tip on the Trix Krispies - they are easy, colorful, and yummy, but I found they go stale pretty fast. Much sooner than the Rice Krispies do. By the next morning (what? I was just testing them), they'd lost a lot of crunch.