Sugar Shack Sunday

Yesterday was Grey Cup Sunday, for those of you south of the border, that's kind of like the Super Bowl, and Dan and Jessie had a special football meal planned that included lots of meatballs and grape jelly. I was busy working to a deadline, but I did (again, MoM . . . maker of miracles) volunteer to 1) get Drummer Boy over here to watch the game with us, and 2) make chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing (and you wonder why I might have to Tell the Truth About Food?!).

It turns out that number #1 (DB) completely obliviated (I know its not a word, but it makes sense to me) the need for #2 (cupcakes), as their terms of endearment for each other kept coming fast and furious and out-sweetened just about anything I could have come up with for dessert.

I asked them if they minded sharing the variations with me (I try to leave the room when they are talking to each other on the phone or in person, as I am sure I would go into insulin shock) or with any possible readers out there. They got gigglier and gigglier as the list rolled out, laughing as they recalled when they used each endearment. It was almost a travel log of their romantic encounters ... from the boot room where they met to the board room where they advocated together for employment opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities just last week.

Here they are: I dare you not to gag. They include (in no particular order, and I have thrown a few non-food related items in there, but there were very few)

raspberry danish

cupcake

strawberry tart

sweet cheeks

strawberry shortcake

hot stuff

sweetie

honey

sugar muffin

sugar lips

honey bunny

hot tamale 

hot pepper

sweetie pie

punkin pie

coco lips

my sweet apricot

short stuff


Most of those came from DB. When I was driving home he admitted, with a grin and a very endearing giggle, that he loves to call her those sweet names to make her giggle.

I have to remember to take my antacid and give thanks for weight-lifting boyfriends with a penchant for advocacy and endearments.

Day One: Back to School; Back Off!

It’s Jessie’s first day back at Storefront, the two-year public school program she is enrolled in that teaches job skills and skills for independence.

We had planned to have a first-day-back celebration with cupcakes that Dan was tasked with buying on his way home from work. In a rare fit of domesticity, I bought a chocolate fudge cake mix at the grocery store (I can only take domesticity so far) and made peanut butter icing. I was feeling like such a good Mom! Then I got an e-mail from Dance With Alana (where Jessie takes a hip hop class) that offered a series of workshops this week, before the regular session starts. I signed Jess up for the video hip hop (don’t ask me, I have no idea what that might be) and the pop and lock class (I have no idea what that is either, only I know it probably doesn’t have anything to do with breaking and entering because Alana isn’t that kind of woman).

I presume everyone reading this sees what’s coming, but I am still in the first blush of fall back to school and feeling like a generous and kind-hearted parent. Jessie calls on her way home from Storefront, excited because she has NO chores! I proudly tell her about the cupcakes. There is silence on the other end of the phone.

“But Mom,” she says quietly, “I told Dad to buy them on the way home.” “Yes, but I thought we could make them instead. Home made is much better than store bought, right?” Silence again. “Sometimes,” she replies. I try to sell her on making cupcakes but fail miserably.

Then I tell her, all excited, about the hip hop workshop. “But I don’t even know what that IS!” she says. Hmmm. I am detecting a theme here, but I try to sell her on that too. Then I just give up, put on my happy excited voice, and say “whatever!” hoping that it will all come out in the wash. “See you when you get home!”

As I hang up, I realize that I have stepped in too close, re-arranged things that don’t need re-arranging, and without even knowing it, undermined her sense of control and direction. It’s not the growing up that’s tricky; it’s the letting go of old ingrained momhood habits. Wish me luck for day 2!