Go Big or Go Home. No really. Go Home.

Can't tell what this is? This was my day.

            Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little bitter when your kid takes credit for something you’ve done?

            At a recent Christmas cookie exchange I placed my gorgeous confections on the table for viewing. When everyone ooohed and ahhed over the reindeer cookies I had slaved over, Chris blurted out, “Those are mine! I brought those!”

            Oh really? You’re the one who was up to her elbows in flour at 11 p.m. as you peered through butter-smeared glasses at an egg-stained recipe card and said many, many bad words when you had to fly to the grocery store in your slippers because earlier you bought baking soda instead of baking powder? Cuz I could have sworn that was me.

Pre-Chaos.

            Like most of my stories, it started with good intentions. I had Norman Rockwellian visions of baking up some sugar cookie sweet memories with my daughter. She asked if she could invite her friends over for a cookie decorating party and in one insane moment I agreed. I mean, how hard could it be to invite over three or four little girls who will titter over gingerbread men and glittery sugar?

            Stupid. I am so, so stupid sometimes.

            Here’s how it went down.

            After spending the weekend lazing around at her father house while I slaved over the afore-mentioned cookies, cookies and more cookies, Chris came home refreshed and ready to party. She took one look at the kitchen table that was beginning to buckle with tasty goodness, rolled her eyes and had the audacity to say, “You went a little overboard on the cookies, don’t you think?”

            Where has she been the last six years? She should know I don’t do anything just a little bit. Besides, I usually don’t mind baking, mostly because I definitely don’t mind eating.

Don't be fooled. This is a staged photo. Chris didn't do anything close to this type of work. It was me. All me.

Anyway, only one out of eight kids RSVP’d that she would be attending. Her mother dropped her off precisely at 3 p.m. and exclaimed at the amount of baking I had done – she’s a mother, she knows who really does all the work. I assured her that we would have a lovely time and hopefully a couple of other kids would show up to join Chris and her daughter for the festivities.

Before she made it around the corner, the doorbell began to ring so often that we had our very own Carol of the Bells in the works. Soon there was something like 10 kids, even a couple who I had only briefly seen once or twice around the neighborhood, bellying up to my cookie table. Some were the male siblings of girls who had actually received invitations. Others I think blindly followed the line of kids hypnotized by the whiff of sugar in the air and were drawn to the frosting like moths to a flame.

Either way, I was a little overwhelmed as I turned around and handed out plates to swarming hands. My one intelligent move for the day was ordering Chris to usher her friends to the bathroom for hand washing. Judging from the brown sink I was left with, it was a necessity.

I wish the brown sink was the least of my worries. With so many kids it became a free-for-all with gel frosting dripping off tablecloths, red frosting knives shoved chaotically in white frosting containers, and glitter-sugar cookies being bumped to the floor. They elbowed each other and frantically grabbed at marshmallows, chocolate chips and snuck M&Ms.

And that still wasn’t the worst of it.

It didn’t take long before they tired of the tedium of decorating for 30 seconds or more. Then they didn’t even bother with the show of placing the candies on the cookies and instead placed them directly in their mouths and washed them down with squirts of frosting and giggles.

It all went downhill from there.

I made these adorable melted
snowman cookies and reindeer.
You think they appreciated them? No.
They just wanted the sugar.

The cookie table was abandoned. Kids ran upstairs and downstairs, slamming doors, tripping over dogs, screaming and chasing one another, throwing toys willy nilly into the air and jumping on beds. I had lost all control and I weakly repeated the only rule that seemed to be heard of the dull roar, “Stay out of my room.” I found a Rapunzel castle in the laundry room, a bowl of candy in the dog’s crate, a jewelry box under the kitchen sink, and I will probably find frosting in the tile grout for weeks.

            It seemed to me that hours passed in which I wrung my hands and wondered just how much the law would allow one to yell at another parent’s kid when the doorbell rang again and my fellow mother stepped into my house laughing. “Having fun?” she said with a snort, taking in my frizzy hair, smeared makeup, red and green floor, and cowering dogs. Plus, she could hear the screaming laughter coming from down the block so she knew the kind of hell of which I was currently in the midst

            Alas, it had only been about an hour since she had left me with only two sweet little angel girls.

            She drug her sugar-strung-out child out the door and I went about the task of trying to send the other demons back to their own parents. This turned out to be a Herculean task, as when kids learn that they have free reign of the upstairs along with all the candy they can jam into their chubby jowls, they aren’t too keen on giving it up. But I egged them out the door with the promise that they could take home all the cookies they decorated. One girl took home four plates and I was all too happy to ply her entire family with diabetes just to get her and a few other children of my hair. Other kids I had to literally sweep out the door with protestations that I needed my bed and they needed some non-glucose-based supper.

            As Chris cried in sadness that her friends were now gone, I looked around at the war-torn living room and reminded her that this was our very first and very last cookie decorating party and that she would not be playing with her friends until she cleaned up.

That kid, she’s no dummy. She gave me a big hug and called me the best mommy in the whole world. I smiled in relief while all the while her hand snaked around my backside to sneak a cookie.

“No! More! Cookies!” I screamed while she ran to the corner to shove in as many crumbs in as she could before I smacked it out of her hand.

I needn’t have bothered. By then she was beginning to crash from the sugar high and passed out on   the couch with half a cookie in one hand and a face covered in blue sprinkles.

I wasn’t far behind. Next time I have one of those Norman Rockwell moments will someone please knock some sense into me?

Dreaming of her next Party Of Terror.