What’s that you say? The Cat In The Hat hasn’t visited you today? How sad, how terribly, terribly sad for you! Come to our house, and join in the wackiness too!

Okay, Dr. Seuss I am not — but JavaMom’s silly mom, I am! I am. Here and there, and everywhere. (Oops, sorry, read Green Eggs and Ham a few too many times today!)

In case you have been under a rock — or don’t have very small children — Dr. Seuss’s birthday is March 2, and for the past few years my son’s preschool and now his kindergarten has used this as a time to celebrate all things Seuss. His preschool (now JavaGirl’s preschool) used to also have Wacky Wednesday the first Wednesday of Seuss week — the kids would show up dressed crazy (two different shoes, mismatched clothes) and were quite delighted to find that the for some reason their classroom was topsy turvy as well.

Somehow this morphed into wacky things happening in our house as well on these Wednesdays and when a very young JavaBoy asked who was responsible for such shenanigans, we shrugged our shoulders and asked him, and he said, “I think the Cat In The Hat did it!” And thus, a new tradition was born! Sometime late Tuesday night, while we are all asleep, the Cat sneaks into our house and makes things wacky!

The Cat In The Hat seems to like to do a lot of things with shoes — he’s put them up on walls, on ceiling fans, and on the legs of chairs and tables. But he’s done other things like put dolls and stuffed animals in all the chairs and seats in the house, turned things upside down, and made some subtle changes to see if JavaBoy will catch on. (JavaGirl is just now old enough to start enjoying Wacky Wednesday.)

Since JavaGirl’s preschool is not have a Seuss week this year, I had almost forgotten about our annual visit from The Cat until I heard JavaBoy mention it to his kindergarten teacher. Apparently this visit holds a lot of meaning to him as he not only mentioned it yesterday, but many times today. Fortunately I was able to confirm with The Cat that he does have us on his schedule for this evening.

I wonder what he’ll do tonight…

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These are the kind of photos my husband bring home that make my heart stop.

“Look at the AIR he got under him!”

Oh. My. Goodness.

He’s supposed to be sliding down a smooth school hill, no one said anything about AIR! Apparently some teenagers decided to add some moguls or whatever they are called (I’m from Miami, remember?) to the “gentle” sledding slope.

“Look, see that shadow, see, he’s lifting off from the snow there.”

Great, honey.

“And then he got very, very far away…”

Uh-huh….

“And he said the cutest thing… He said, ‘Daddy, can you see me?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ And he said, ‘Am I really, really small?’ And I said ‘Yes!’ And then he said, ‘Is my voice small like an ant’s?’

So what did you say?

“I said ‘Yes!’ because I didn’t want him to go any further away.”

At last, sanity prevails.

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Look what I the kids got for Christmas! I’ve waited a long time to get for the kids to be old enough to get an Easy Bake Oven! I remember how much I loved mine as a little girl, foisting impossibly tiny cakes on my parents.

Now that I’m the Mommy, I realize just how awful those little cakes really taste when you aren’t bursting with that I-made-it-myself pride.

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My family has always called me a night owl. My college roommates would concur. My children have actually come in and yelled at me for keeping them awake (or waking them up) by typing in the middle of the night. In my California days, I consulted with a nutritionist who said I had the most whacked out Circadian rhythm she’s ever seen.

I don’t sleep well at night.

There are different types of insomnia, but essentially there’s the kind that means it is hard to get to sleep and the kind where you fall asleep but once you wake up, you can’t go back to sleep. I have both of those. Yeah, it’s a b*$ch. And I’ve had it all my life, as near as I can tell. It gets worse if I am worried or anxious about something. And even worse if I’m sick or having any sort of pain. Pregnancy was a ton of fun!

If I am allowed to, my best hours of sleep are when the world doesn’t want me to — between 7am and 10 am. And my most productive hours are between 10pm and 2am. Not really a terrific schedule for work or a mother. So I cope. And I sleep very little, something I’m used to.

But sometimes my body really rebels and I get virtually no sleep. The clock keeps going by and I watch as it is 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am, my mind and body tensing as I know I will be a grouch with no sleep, and yet I know the day is about to start. This week has been one of those weeks.

Over the years I’ve talked to various doctors about it, who sort of shrug their shoulders, tell me to exercise more, cut out caffeine, maybe prescribe a sleeping pill. This is the year I’ve decided I can’t live this way any more. This is the year I’m going to hunt down someone who really understands this kind of a problem and helps me find a better way.

Because I love interacting with all my West Coast friends on Twitter and Facebook in real-time. But I’d love a “normal” night’s sleep more.

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Usually he’s busy asserting his independence. Although he’s 5, he reads at a second-grade level and his father and I can no longer use spelling as a secret code. And yet, today, as he languished in bed with a high fever, JavaBoy seemed more like my baby boy again than the boy who has been losing teeth and growing legs longer than his pants.

He needed his Mommy today.

I hated watching how pathetic he looked, at times complaining about how hot he was and other times feeling chilled. Too sick to be interested in food — much different from the child who says, “I’m hungry” practically every 10 minutes including yesterday.

As I snuggled up next to him in bed, and scratched his head and buried my nose in his hair, I almost felt like I caught a whiff of that scent babies have — a scent JavaBoy lost long ago now that he’s a Big Boy. But I remembered all those nights that I held him in my arms, rocking him or just snuggling him at night, worrying about the things new moms worry about, while taking in that baby smell.

We play a game, where I sometimes try to scoop him up, long legs and all, and I say, “Ohhh, where did my baby JavaBoy go? Where did he go? Can I smoosh you all up back into a baby and stick you back in my tummy?” He finds this quite hysterical because of course this is quite ridiculous — the thought of him ever being that small seems so very silly. And yet he knows he’ll always be my baby boy.

I look at him tonight, fever temporarily quashed with Tylenol, but fitful in his sleep, and I realize that Moms still worry, even when they aren’t new moms anymore.

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You’d really have to be hiding under a rock not to know that Sesame Street has hit the big 4-0. The media blitz has been quite impressive, with the Muppets taking over game shows, talk shows (did you see them on The Doctors?), even being honored with their own Google logo. Naturally this required the release of a 2-DVD set Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days. Heck, JavaDad turned 40 in the same year and even he had a DVD — albeit made by his brother.

When the PR folks behind the blitz asked if I’d like to review the DVD set, it took me half a second to give a resounding YES, and I apologize that it has taken me this long to write to tell you about it, because it is terrific. In fact, it is going to become my favorite gift to give in 2010 for children and adults alike.

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The Floridian in me never ceases to be amazed when it snows enough to actually stick to the ground. I just love looking at the whole world being draped with a nice, white blanket of snow. And of course, the JavaKids and I have to find a way to turn it into a way to make something in the kitchen!

I’m linking you to a post from earlier this year for snow cream and snow candy — both delicious and easy to make! I was going to add photos, but to be honest, unless you a professional food photographer, snow candy while still in the snow does not look much different than — uh– yellow snow from a dog — and once you lift if out of the snow, it is in a child’s (or Mommy’s) mouth so fast, you can’t get a photo of it! Snow cream doesn’t look like much more than white mush in a photo!

You can also mix up a little food coloring and water and get out there and do a little snow painting. Or just go out and roll around in the white, fluffy stuff! Just have FUN!

When you come in, mix up a huge batch of my favorite hot chocolate, read a good book, indulge in a bit of Robert Frost, and relax! (Until it’s time to deal with those sopping wet jackets, snow pants, boots, mittens and so on….)

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It’s been a little rough in the JavaFamily household this week… JavaDad has had the flu and a kidney infection and when JavaDad is sick, no one is happy! It is clear how much we function as an entire unit — when one of us is out of commission, it throws the household out of whack.

So pardon the absence of posts of late, but I thought some of my readers might enjoy a couple from this time last year:

• My foolproof way to cook a turkey (no, really!)
• And the most adorable Thanksgiving treats ever — Ritzy Turkeys and Pilgrim Hats — always a hit with my kids.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and among my many blessings are YOU — the readers of Caffeine and a Prayer, which is now ONE YEAR OLD!

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a fun treat. Here’s my “oh my goodness, I need to make 42 cupcakes” solution for some Halloween fun. I did not invent these, in fact a friend described to me that she was making spider cupcakes and I did a quick search on Google and found tons of variations.

Sadly, my digital camera decided to die a sad Error 18 death this week, so this grainy photo from my phone will have to do. Note that these are not up to Martha Stewart’s standards as my children insist on helping (can you imagine?!) and I have long ago decided that family fun far outweighs aesthetics. Oh, and my son was quick to point out that spiders have eight legs, but as many people mentioned in their instructions, eight legs get a big cumbersome on a cupcake. My son said spiders also have multiple eyes, but I informed him we were sticking to just two.

What you’ll need:

• cupcakes (we made Devil’s Food — I recommend some form of chocolate so you don’t have to do a perfect job of frosting them)
• chocolate icing of some sort (we used a chocolate fudge icing)
• something for legs — if you can find shoestring licorice, great, we couldn’t find that so we used pull apart cherry Twizzlers.
• something for eyes — we used M&Ms

Make the cupcakes and allow to cool. Recommendations online varied about doing legs before or after frosting, but we chose to do them before, poking them into the cupcakes themselves. I recommend putting them as close to the edge as possible and poking them downward (instead of at an angle) and then trimming so that the bottom hits the same point as the bottom of the cupcake. You can cut with kitchen scissors.

After that, smooth on icing with a knife or small icing spatula. You can just roll it right over the tops of the legs and don’t worry about icing underneath the legs (see the beauty of having chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing?) It does NOT have to be perfect — kids will eat these in a nanosecond. Plop on two eyes and you are done. I personally prefer that the Ms of the M&Ms are hidden, JavaGirl insists that they are face-up.

Some people like to add candy corn fangs to the front.

Other suggestions for legs are: pretzel rods, fat black licorce (these would be fat legs that stick straight out), and pipe cleaners (non-edible, of course).

The whole family was able to get involved – JavaDad attached legs, I frosted, and the kids added the eyes. The whole family was able to get involved – JavaDad attached legs, I frosted, and the kids added the eyes. JavaGirl was thrilled to take them to school today and JavaBoy can’t wait to take them to his class tomorrow. Seeing the pride in their eyes makes me glad I didn’t succumb to the temptation to just buy store-bought cupcakes.

Enjoy!

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Motherhood isn’t all Jell-O and cute drawings on the fridge you know… it’s fraught with a lot of don’t-go-there thoughts. Especially for someone who not only watches lots of crime TV but has been a crime reporter and has seen some of the worst humanity can do.

You can get a glimpse of the dark corners or my maternal mind in my latest DC Metro Moms post, “Not on the School Supply List” today.

A slightly less dark and twisty post is my rant about DCMM post on Sunday about HOV lane cheaters.

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