Zipper, Cake, and the Rain

First of all, I must say, I feel awful. Not sick exactly, but rundown, tired, and headachy. But Mom can't just laze around in bed - she still has to function when she's ill.

But that doesn't mean I can't spin a quick amusing tale or two, does it?

Zipper's brithday party was fine, just family, and between the 4 kids there was so much noise that you would have thought there was 15 kids there.

Of course with school days comes the requisite celebration of the birthday in class. But there's a bit of a problem - if I want to bring in a treat, it has to be egg-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, and soy-free due to the allergies in the class. Oh, joy.

But I'm always up for a challenge! So off to the Internet I go to find a cake and frosting recipe suitable for the class. After just a few minutes I find a lovely recipe at Food Allergy Cookbook for both the cake and frosting.

But there's a bit of a problem. Hmmm. The recipe calls for vegetable oil, but that's part soybean oil. Ok, so buy canola oil then, no big deal. Uh, oh. The frosting recipe calls for dairy-free margarine. I would have thought that somewhere out there someone would make a margarine that doesn't contain soy. Wrong, wrong, wrong, no such animal (or plant) could I find. But one last desperate spin through the organic section turns up Spectrum Naturals Organic Shortening made from 100% palm oil. It'll do! Mind you, it cost me $5.49, but I would not be defeated by this challenge!

So I put it all together, and actually it came out pretty darn well. The frosting tasted a little weird, but I think it was from too much powdered sugar and not enough chocolate. Oh, and one cake recipe makes many, many, many mini cupcakes!

Ok, one more quick story. It's been pouring rain today, and Zipper obliged by splashing in all the puddles on the walk home, soaking his shoes. So when it came time to pick up Rascal a couple hours later, Zipper insisted on wearing his brother's snow boots. O-Kay....

We are crossing the street, and a car is coming, so I'm trying to hurry Zipper. He stumbles, and a boot comes off. So quickly I snatched him and the boot up and finished crossing. There's a beep from the car, which has stopped in the street. Wouldn't you know it, the other boot came off in the middle of the street.

Put the kid down on the wet sidewalk, go get the boot from the road, put them both back on the kid's now soaked feet... *sigh*