Mine.

The kids hide food.

I swear we feed them.

I never hid food as a kid, but then, I have only one sister. If my mom brought a box of Zingers or Jello Pudding Pops home, we were guaranteed to get one. Hell, more than one. More often than not, exactly half the box for each of us.

Not so in my current family.

A regular-sized box of anything isn’t big enough for all the kids. We buy in bulk wherever possible, and buy multiples when it isn’t. Even if the numbers work out, no one is guaranteed an equal share.

We don’t run our house as a democracy, nor as a commune. It’s a benign dictatorship with a flourishing black market. Any treat we buy is immediately, surreptitiously pillaged and hidden.

#5, being little, likes to tell me his hiding places. Sometimes he asks if it’s okay. I haven’t figured out if he’s cute, or if he’s trying to distract me from his more sinister master plan. But occasionally, I hide things on his behalf, because what are the odds that an eight-year-old boy can come up with a hiding place that his four older sisters haven’t found before him, and won’t think of in the future?

I get mad when they hide things to the extent that one kid gets all of them. I also get pissed when they hide something successfully and forget about it, and I find it months later with a green/blue spray of mold across it or else fused to the inside of an appliance we rarely use. Sometimes one kid finds another kid’s stash, takes a bite and returns it to its hiding place. The pantry is a minefield of half-open wrappers with one bite missing. Likewise the freezer.

I come across hidden treats when I’m packing lunches or pretending to cook. What I do with them depends on my mood and where I find them. And if it was anything I wanted for myself to begin with.

This morning I found someone’s half-eaten bag of Sour Patch Kids. It’s now a three-quarters-eaten bag of Sour Patch Kids.

UPDATE: It is now a bag containing four Sour Patch Kids.

UPDATE: #1 just declared in a very loud and sarcastic voice while we were standing in the kitchen, “Oh no, I knew that was a bad place to hide my Sour Patch Kids.” I pretended not to hear her.

We pay allowance. Not much: 50 cents per year of age, per week. I don’t pay on time. I currently owe them about three hundred dollars. They spend most of their money on food: Ramen. Nutella. Marshmallow Fluff. Frozen chocolate chip waffles. Brownie mix. Donuts. Icing. Soda. Lemon Juice (yes, lemon juice). CC makes them share any and all candy, even if they buy it with their own money, but somehow there’s a loophole around everything else.

They’re not supposed to keep food in their rooms for the obvious reasons, so it’s all about how to make sure nobody else gets their treats. In addition to the hiding, there are threats, fair trades, bargaining, and diversion.

Still, they steal like mad. They steal from each other and then when they discover that their own treat, purchased with their own money, has been decimated, they are indignant. And I’m forced to point out the fallacy of their argument, namely that they can’t complain about the loss when they’re thieving themselves. This makes me incredibly popular, as you might imagine.

I personally get around this by just buying things for myself that they don’t like. Dark chocolate is the only treat they won’t eat. Beyond that, I’m safe with spinach and brussels sprouts, and crushed red pepper flakes on everything else. (I learned that last one from my Dad.)

A new development in protecting their loot has sprung up: messages written on containers. This is from a carton of Limeade that #4 bought:

“Warning I licked it. I licked the spout.”

Pi Day Pie

Sunday Night:

#3 just came running in to remind me that we need a pie for tomorrow. A few weeks ago she gave me a sheet from her math class. It was about Pi Day (March 14) celebrations, and they were asking for, among other things, some pies.

Last year I saw a picture of the most badass Pi Day pie ever made. I just searched Google images and can’t find it, which can only mean that I must know the person who made it and saw the picture on Facebook. It was homemade, crust and all, with the symbol Pi cut out of pie crust and placed on top in the center, and then the numbers cut out of pie crust, placed all around the edges of the pie. This was the first I’d ever heard of celebrating Pi Day. I was an instant believer.

I am a geek at heart and that pie thrilled me. This memory is what welled up in me when #3 handed me her math sheet, and it was what took over and compelled me to yes, volunteer a pie. I was going to make her a homemade pie, crust and all, and decorate it with as many decimal places of Pi that I could fit around the circumference.

Then I went to Berlin and we had some crises at home and I forgot all about it until she just now came to me, and I am jetlagged and cranky and the last thing I want to do is leave the house and make a goddamn pie happen.

This is what happens when I try to be a better parent.

But.

I said I would.

I am now off to the store to see how I can remedy this with a half-assed solution without totally crushing my geek spirit, or completely letting down #3 and her math class.

I asked CC for input. (Foodies, you can stop reading here). He suggested frozen pie crusts and canned filling. Hot damn!

*********

Back from the store. I assemble the pie parts and then proceed to use an additional pie crust and cut out numbers freestyle with a blade. I am way too into this. The kids keep coming by and looking, and they comment on how cool it is and how unlike me it is. It takes a long time. I do not read #5 and #4 stories tonight like I usually do on Sundays. I do not even tuck them into bed. I am Baking a Pie. Leave me alone.

I signed up to give a pie to try and be a better parent. I end up being a worse parent with a nifty pie.

Nifty, except it had an accident in the baking process. The color is uneven. And it ripped, and now it looks like it’s bleeding.

Doesn’t it rock?

I had hoped that some superior mom would be envious of my pie and erroneously attribute me mad parenting skills. That was before my Pi pie turned into sweet vampire protection.

Bionic Poodle Kafka Spam or, On Why I’m Up at 4:30am

This picture is here for no reason except I like it.

Jetlag. It’s a better reason than normal for why I would be up at 4:30am. Once upon a time, 4:30am was an hour for going to sleep, not waking up. But since we got the kids the only reasons I am ever up at 4:30am all involve vomit.

So I’m happy for the jetlag. It got me hours of uninterrupted sleep, broken only by CC waking me at midnight with a dozen red roses. Then more sleep only interrupted by the dogs waking up because they went to bed with me at 7pm and they really had to go out. I played the “I’m weary, I just traveled home” card to get CC to take them out. It was my only chance- I’m back on the clock tomorrow.

By the time they came back inside, I was awake. Plus I figure I’ve got at least an hour and a half before #5 wakes up to play Wii, so I’m takin’ it. Sorry for making you get up, CC.

Here’s how I was greeted when I came home:

I was fumbling loudly at the front door with my bags and also trying to get the mail, because for some reason nobody in my house but me gets the mail. I heard the dogs bark and the kids scream, having used their supernaturally fine-tuned senses to deduce that I was home.

When I opened the door, #4 and #2 were holding two very wiggly puggles that nearly jumped to their dooms because they almost wiggled out straight down the staircase, and #3 and #5 were in the living room crying because in their haste to make it to the door they smacked body parts, head to hip I think, hard. Then the Evil Brown One wiggled out of #4’s grip, bloodying her nose in the process, at which point the Fuggle also jumped out and both dogs stopped wiggling and proceeded to smell my suitcase intently, baffled by what they were processing. Apparently, they don’t sniff Germish.

goofball — Don't mock me. I'll eat your shoes.

I went past the pile of bags and puppies to see the Crying Ones. #3 had pulled it together and hugged me but #5 was still sobbing and holding his head. He also looked like he was foaming at the mouth.

“What in God’s name is on your mouth?” I asked.

“Powdered donut,” he answered clearly, then resumed sobbing.

“You look like you have rabies,” I said.

Within three minutes, they were all re-absorbed six inches from the television in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place that I myself have seen nine times and I don’t even watch TV. They forgot to ask if I brought them souvenirs. So I withheld them. Heh. I’m drunk with power.

But as the afternoon went on and I sat with G-Middy (my mom, who was watching them while I was gone), every one of them individually climbed into my lap chattered. Even the dogs, but that was more about slobbery tennis balls and rockin’ underbites.

It’s nice to be back.

I have more posts to come about Berlin, but I’m still processing. So I leave you with these:

Here are some more naked babies. These ones are gold.

Interesting Things I Ate In Berlin:

Three kinds of cold fish at breakfast.

Lingonberries.

Baked apples wrapped in a homemade cinamon donut, times three.

A cheese plate with non-pasteurized cheese. Twice (it’s a completely different animal).

Apple compote with mustard. There may have been some figs involved as well.

The international version of pig in a blanket: wurst in a croissant. This was my favorite thing ever. I would be nine hundred pounds if I lived in Germany.

The best bratwurst, potatoes, and sourkraut I’ve ever had in my life. Twice.

Steak Tartar. The German version makes the French version surrender, but I hear that happens with a lot of things. It was about a pound and a quarter (I’m sure there’s some easy metric equivalent) of raw German organic ground beef, topped with a raw German organic egg yolk, and it dared you to eat it.

Wiener Schnitzel, which is a pounded flat veal cutlet breaded with some heavenly popover-tasting batter. It looks like chikkenfriedsteak without the gravy.

Veal Dumplings. This is the point where I should tell you that at home, I don’t eat meat.

Currywurst, which they slice up and put a spicy ketchup on and then give you a tiny fork so you can walk around while you eat it.

Ritter Sport candybars, which I’ve always liked and can get at the deli around the corner from my theater but they’re fresher here. Also, by my hotel they had a store where you could make your own– kinda like the candy bar version of a Cold Stone.

The chocolates they leave at turndown service, which rock. I accidentally found the amazing chocolatier who makes them two blocks from my hotel. So I bought more. Did I mention I would weigh nine hundred pounds if I lived in Germany?

As for the rest of the title of this post, I leave you with this picture of an ad at a bus stop. Please tell me if you have any idea what it means.