The best laid plans

Last Wednesday afternoon, Patrick informed me he had to go to Ottawa for all of Thursday. I would be left home alone with the three kids for all three meals, as well as bedtime.

I wasn't happy about this, to say the least.

That morning, however, I remembered something a dear friend of mine said when her husband went away for a whole week, and she was left alone with their three kids, ages five and under. She said, instead of asking herself, "How can I get through this?" she asked herself "How can we get through this together?"

I thought that was a great attitude to adopt. Why see my kids as my adversaries, especially when they are actually kind, sweet and fun to be around?

So with this in mind, I set about making it the best day I could. And it really went by beautifully. We enjoyed each other's company immensely -- finger-painting, going for a little walk to our local grocery store, reading books, not squabbling (!), and eating Kraft Dinner I mean salads. Lots of salads. Riiiight.

(Listen, we don't own a t.v., and even if I had wanted to let them watch Netflix -- which I didn't -- Patrick had the laptop. So... processed foods, people. We all have our crutches. Don't tell me you don't.)

That's not the point of this story, however.

I was feeling so thrilled by how our day was going that when we went to the store, it was to buy a pound of butter to make chocolate chip cookies. They are Patrick's favourite, and I decided I wanted to be a 1950s housewife and have a delicious treat waiting for him when he came home from a long day at work.

As I got to the store, my imaginary 1950s image of myself got more elaborate. Now I was determined to have a cocktail waiting for him as well. So I bought a bottle of tonic water while at the store and some limes. With a little Beefeater gin that we had in our basement, I would have a delicious gin and tonic for my hardworking husband.

(I'm not exactly sure why I thought a cocktail would be the best way to dote on him, especially since I am in terrible need of getting caught up on laundry. As in, he wore the same socks today as he did yesterday because I couldn't find any clean ones for him!

And to say Patrick isn't much of a drinker would be the understatement of the universe. But I never claimed to be sensible. Just... enthusiastic.)

So I came home, fed the kids, got them into bed, nursed Anna and changed her, put her in her swing, tidied up the house and set about making the cookies. Except I quickly discovered the brown sugar had hardened. So I chiseled it with a steak knife while the butter was given a solid beating by the Kitchenaid. Having chipped away enough for my recipe, I dumped that in, ignoring the fact that it wasn't an especially thorough job. Then I discovered there was no white sugar either, so I decided icing sugar would work. (I think I was mistaken on this point but sometimes I suffer from baking hubris... which since I have posted pictures of my baking, I really, really shouldn't.)

I added the rest of the dry ingredients, reached into the cupboard to grab the bag of chocolate chips, and was startled that the big had no 'give.' It felt like a solid mass. When I opened the bag, a brand-new bag I should say, and from Costco, I should also say, I discovered that indeed, what was once many small chocolate chips was now a brick. The stupid wood stove being in the kitchen makes it unbearably hot, not to mention difficult to keep an even temperature, especially when the oven is on at the same time, so the chocolate chips melted and hardened again.

My mania was not to be trifled with, however. I would chisel the chunk of chocolate, too.

After a few minutes of that, I was in a sweat, and had snapped the tip off my steak knife into the mass of chocolate. Now if someone bites into it, they'll get a little bite of knife blade in their mouth; I have become one of those loony people that scare parents into checking their kids Halloween candy.

I mixed the cookie dough together, and it looked weird -- a bit like well-blended pastry dough or something. So I threw another egg in. Why, I don't know. Maybe it was because I had already poured myself my own gin and tonic and was feeling creative.

I put the cookies in the oven and Patrick walked through the door. I told him all about my day, asked him about his, and then the oven timer beeped. I peeked in at my cookies and they hadn't spread at all. They sat, stiffly, mocking me.

I gave them another two minutes. Of course, when I did take them out, they were over-baked. I did some percussion on the kitchen table with one little cookie-brick and Patrick affectionately called them "mutant cookies".

He claimed my gin and tonic was too strong, so I finished it for him.
Then off I went to bed defeated by yet another baking fail. And it wasn't even something elaborate. I screwed up chocolate chip cookies, for heaven's sake!

Disastrous cookies, two cocktails and going to bed in a mini-huff? I think I pulled off the 1950s housewife thing perfectly, the one dark movies love to focus on -- the dissatisfied lush.