Dueling Cupcakes..

Sooo KaiBear asked me if we could make cupcakes to take to school for the celebration of her birth. This was on Thursday after school, while we were attempting to get the house decent for her friends to come over. It became clear pretty quickly that we didn't have time to do both before it was time for her to go spend the night at her other house. So, being the amazing and nurturing mom that I am, I promised to make them that night and have them ready when she got home in the morning.



I did as I said I would, including me and my partner in codependency going to Walmart at 9pm to get a few things. We found a recipe on the internets that was some famous vanilla cupcake thing from New York that was featured on Martha Stewart. We were up until 1am, but they were delicious and we ate a lot of batter to keep us awake, so I know they were delicious.



I was up bright and early Friday morning frosting those pups. Not frosting them, really, because I had promised her I'd let her do that part. But I was getting the frosting ready so that she wouldn't be late for all of us to pile in the car and drive her to school, this time with the perfectly legitimate excuse that one of us needed to help her in with all those cupcakes. So, there I am making frosting, and in walks our little birthday angel girl, holding two pans of frosted cupcakes.
She's all, Hey, look what we did last night! isn't that great? Now I'll have enough for everyone to have two cupcakes! We got this cake mix that was cherry chip! Doesn't that sound sooo good? I can't believe we have so many! This is so cool.

The thing they don't teach you about co-parenting is that you have to learn the breathing techniques. The breathing techniques are alot like Lamaze, except in Lamaze you're working toward delivering a healthy baby and in CoParenting breathing you're attempting to raise a relatively unscrewed up child into an emotionally stable adult. The challenging thing is that the child cannot be aware of the breathing changes or she will sense the anger, tension, discomfort, bitterness, sadness, and/or rage. That would be bad. The child should not be exposed to the difficulties of co-parenting in all it's glory.

So, I started my breathing and going to my happy place in my head (a place where we don't share any of our children, and I am the only cupcake baker). I mumbled something about how FANTASTIC that was and look at all those LOVELY cupcakes, oh how GLORIOUS. Then Daddy comes downstairs and she's all Hey, dad, look what we made last night! Isn't this great? Do you want to try one? Do you? They're sooo good! Try one, try one, try one! And he's got that terrified look on his face that tells me that he knows how overjoyed I must be to have stayed up so late and gone to all this trouble and please don't kill anyone today, come on, it's her birthday, not today of all days, maybe tomorrow, but not today. He tells her that he's quite full from our delicious cupcakes and No, thank you, I'll pass, save them for your friends. When she went up to get ready for school he did his best to sooth my irritation. The other thing about co-parenting is this, when my spouse is understanding and we laugh stuff off and we do our deep breathing together it's not too bad.

And, since I'm not sure that any of you (well, maybe one of you) have done this balancing act of raising a child with others involved, let me try to explain. It still won't be the same, but I'll try. Imagine, if you will, that polygamy is alive and well and out in the open. Like, if there was a law passed saying that anyone can marry anyone they want to, that love is love, something like that. So, you have your husband and you love each other, but your husband has two homes and you HAVE to stay and you HAVE to love everyone and you HAVE to share your husband. He spends some nights at his other house and the rest of the nights with you, so you learn to ignore that there even is another house, and just focus on the life that you live together. After awhile you would realize that the anger and hate and stuff isn't helping anyone, so while you'll never WANT to share, you might as well make the most of it. Sort of like that, but different. And it's not like the love is different than for your other children. Maybe if you combine families when they're older, but if you've done bottles and diapers and potty training and cribs, and if you choose the child before you choose the husband, then it's the same love, just one more of your kids. So it's not like the way that you share your nieces and nephews with your siblings. It's not like that. Really, sharing your spouse is the only thing I can compare it too. It sucks, but it's the only way to do it, so you just get on with it. At least we all get along fine, that helps a TON. The anger and stuff isn't really directed at anyone, since nobody did anything wrong, it's just there. Does any of this make any sense?

So, ANYWAY, I put on my happy co-parenting face and she helped me frost them and put green sprinkles on, since green is her favorite, then we put pastel M&Ms on them, so they looked like little Easter nests. So cute. Then we figured out how to get all 48 cupcakes into the car with all of us and got her to school on time.

Here was my favorite part of the whole morning: Daddy took all those cupcakes in to her classroom and her (very adorable, ex pro-football player) teacher says, "Hey, those cupcakes are two different kinds." Chris says "yeah, we've got dueling moms." and teacher laughs and he's like, "Gotcha. Well, tell me which ones I like better." So Chris points out the clearly superior cupcakes and the teacher goes on about how delicious and wonderful THOSE cupcakes look. Yeah, I know they do, cause I stayed up half the night making that amazingness and they are delicious and wonderful.

Co-parenting tragedy averted.

Sometimes it reminds me of my kids. Like when the oldest one had an ipod and the younger one wanted one, but the older one freaked out because she didn't want the younger one to have one. I tried to explain to her that her sister having one didn't TAKE AWAY from her having one, she still had one, too. She didn't get it. But I think I do. I still made those amazing cupcakes. There was still just as much love baked in to each glorious one. Just because she had other cupcakes and other love, from other people, doesn't diminish my love or tarnish it. I can't be the only one, that's not an option I'm given (without going to prison for murder) so I can still be the best one I can be not let it get to me or be possessive and stuff. So, that's my therapy session for the day. I just saved a hundred bucks. Thanks for your help.