A Long Day, A Funny Cupcake

It's just a coincidence that my husband left for a trip on the morning both of the children were sick because I know he wouldn't want to leave me with two sniffling, sweating, miserable complaining angels, now would he? Not that I have anything to complain about myself. My son slept until 10:45 a.m. and the little one took an unprecedented 2.5 hour morning nap which meant that, unlike a normal day, this one included a great deal of quiet.

The trouble is, as most mothers of small children know, the day goes by much, much more slowly when you know your husband will not be coming home in the evening, and when you realize, because your children are walking snot-faucets, that you cannot go anywhere to see anyone and cannot have anyone come to see you. Time shifts to slug pace and the minutes pass with a horrifying languidness, so you play with the kids--down on the floor, really cheerful, engaged, present--and look at the clock certain it's lunch time. And only five minutes have passed. (And then you feel guilty and awful and yell at yourself internally for being such a bad mother all the while dreaming about when you get to sit down all by yourself and check your email, except when you check your email you can no longer imagine why you wanted to because there aren't any emails and just why would sitting and staring at a computer screen ever compare with playing pony with your precious offspring?)

So when I had got both of them down for a nap, and was standing in the kitchen thinking about the fact that I probably would not see another person for the whole duration of the day (excluding the children, of course, who do qualify as people, of course but not people people like the kind you can chat with over supper), I realized there was no chocolate in the house. There was hot chocolate, which I made, but the problem with that is that you can't chew it. I wanted to chew something. And there was no chocolate in the house because I ate all of it all at once on Monday. I stood at the counter desperate for a solution. We had chocolate sauce--homemade and courtesy of my mother-in-law, as well as cupcakes (white with white frosting), but no actual chocolate.

Then it hit me. I quickly took out the chocolate sauce--luckily a firm sauce--a knife, and a cupcake. You can imagine, I'm sure, the end result. That cupcake couldn't see the light of day!

And so, I passed ten minutes. Meanwhile, my husband hasn't actually left town yet. Oh, it's going to be a long day. (And thanks to Shirley Jackson whose writing style inspired this entry.)