3x harder than it needed to be

Every night at dinner my 2 year old daughter has the same routine.  She asks everyone at the table (and sometimes the dog too) "What's your best day?" - meaning what's the best part of your day?  Picture perfect scene of family harmony, right?  Except today my answer was: "I'm not sure.  It was a hard day (mainly because of said 2 year old).  I think the best part of my day was this morning when I was still laying in bed".

That pretty much sums up the day.  It was one of those days when everything was 3 times harder than it needed to be.  And even after breakfast, (when the 2 year old was especially demanding and the damn seed from the avocado wouldn't come out and something was up with that avocado in general). I told myself - just because a few bad things happen, doesn't mean the whole day was ruined; we could turn this around.  NO!  Some days it's just a better idea to scrap the plans for the entire day, maybe go to a park and then spend the rest of the day in jammies watching tv.  Hindsight is very wise.  That's not what we did.  And if I still thought this day could turn around (at 8:15 at night) - the universe decided to rub it in - I just sneezed into my shirt sleeve after putting a chocolate covered raisin in my mouth - so now I have that chocolate stain to get out of my shirt.

So two batches today - because again - everything harder than it needed to be.  The goal today - to make 1 batch of cookies to bring up to the cabin with some friends.  Seemed simple enough.  My to-do list wasn't overwhelming.  The kids and I would do playgroup in the morning and then usually they're pretty chill.

So I went to start the batch of Easy Pumpkin Spice Cookies - like I had planned for when I went grocery shopping - except I didn't buy the necessary yellow cake mix.  I thought I had bought it last time I was at the store because it was on sale.  But now I remember I was going to, then decided it wasn't worth it.  So ... no yellow cake mix.

No worries though - I could make this other batch (Chewy Maple Cookies) that I had planned to make earlier and then didn't.  Except - I only had 1 egg because I forgot to tell husband to buy eggs at Costco while I did the regular grocery shopping at Cub.  There's a chance here that our grocery shopping routines are too complicated.

But it's okay - this recipe only called for 1 egg!  YES!

Except - it turned out that this batch is the first batch I've ever thrown away.  I'm not sure how important it is to cream the butter and sugars together before adding in the other ingredients - because I sort of got distracted and did that.  I scooped out the egg that I mistakenly threw in and creamed the butter and sugar and then threw in the egg - but this batch did not turn out.  Or maybe it's because I used Aunt Jemima syrup instead of "pure maple syrup" that the recipe called for.  Anyway, this is what happened:

These were supposed to be chewy, and not looking like that - but instead they spread too thin and were not chewy. 

So all right, what can I make that doesn't require eggs?  Not too many recipes in that book with no eggs - a few - but then I was missing other ingredients.  So back to the Easy Pumpkin Spice cookie.  Yes, that means a trip to the grocery store.

At this point I was a little annoyed, not too crabby.  The kids had spent the last hour playing nicely and doing art.  Yeah, that's when all the moods kicked in - and the 2 year old got hard.  We'll just sum it up with "defiance, button pushing, arguing, demanding, and ignoring (ignoring mommy that is).  

But I was determined.  Made these during nap time: 

These cookies did go well and I wish I could say that was the turn around for the day, but it wasn't.  The two year old woke up; crying, because isn't that how all people wake up from a 2 hour nap.  It's how the 2 year old wakes up about 50% of the time.

So there it is: batches 314 and 315.

I think this day calls for a long soak in the whirlpool!