Underachieving Snack Attempt

Tomorrow I'm on point for preschool "letter of the week" snacks again. This time we have the letter "V". I was stumped on a creative idea. I didn't want to copy my earlier attempt (iced sugar cookies in the shape of the letter C), so I spent hours on the internet looking for ideas. Vegetables? Oh come on ... I don't want Claire to remember me as the mother who sent veggies to school snack time where all the kids complained.

My research came down to the word vanilla ("V" for vanilla) so I decided on an easy snack this time - vanilla wafer "sandwiches". Such little effort! Shame on me. But worse - much worse - is I became every parent's nightmare by making a tree nut kind of snack. The filling for the sandwiches is marshmallow creme and Nutella, and as you ought to know, Nutella is mostly hazelnuts. So I'll send all these preschool kids to the hospital or maybe kill a few of them. Hmmmm.

I did make a few 'sandwiches' with only the marshmallow gunk and also included a bag of plain Vanilla Wafers, all kept separate from the Nutella stuff to avoid cross-contamination. At least I hope I kept them appropriately separate. And now I'm hoping that any parent with a child who has severe tree nut allergies would not send his/her kid to preschool because the dangers of idiot parents like myself are great.

So I give myself about a D- on this task, and on top of a work day where I'd give myself only about a C, I'm not feeling like much of an overachiever today. I was at the office while Kyle was home with the kids (Wednesday will be his usual dad-the-nanny day). The house was nicely clean again when I got home but Molly didn't nap so she was super cranky tonight. What's worse is that after I was home just 15 minutes Kyle left to work at the neighbor's house until past 10pm tonight, so I was stuck with dinner and bedtimes for the kids while Molly was in a bad mood. I had everyone in bed and the kitchen cleaned by 8:30pm but then I had to make my deadly preschool snacks. I was fast enough with the 'sandwiches' to be able to watch CSI:NY at 9pm, and I haven't left my bed since then.

I think my continuing fatigue is still partially attributable to my head cold, but more likely from increasing financial stress. Kyle and I are clearly making adjustments to our economic reality (stopping gym membership, only buying necessities, dropping 11 hours of nanny time each week), but pressure continues to mount despite our efforts. There's only so much we can cut on the "out" side of our budget - the reality is we either have to bring more money in or dump major assets like the house and the darned Volvo we can't seem to sell in today's car market. Ah yes, we're still paying two car payments .... and with Kyle's business hit by the economy this winter, we're definitely feeling like a ship taking on water. Major decisions loom.

And I'm tired just thinking about it. Good night.