Description: Home Ec in the 21st Century
Halfway through summer. I feel I’ve struck a good balance between Tiger Mother and Lazy Mom. The lists are still working amazingly well with Mr. Eleven and Miss Nine. Five out of seven days their beds are made, they’ve done a chore, worked on some math review, practiced their instruments. Their rooms are pretty clean. We’ve clocked two or three hours a week at the library, just hanging out. Miss Nine has become good friends with a girl down the street, so most days she has someone to play with.
The past two weeks, the boys were in enrichment classes every morning. The ride home after dropping them off was peaceful. Miss Nine is not a child who needs to chatter constantly (unlike her brothers). We’d go home, do our chores, maybe run an errand. A couple weeks ago, she baked this cake for our anniversary, adding chopped up Snickers bars between the layers (half the recipe, baked in two 9-inch cake pans, made enough dessert for three nights. Next time, though, I wouldn’t halve the ganache.)
We discovered that she doesn’t have the strength yet to use the pastry bag, but she scratched the letters in the frosting with a toothpick, and I traced them with the icing.