Acts of Love

After my self-absorbed rant of this morning, I realized I needed to do some repenting. I'd overreacted to something that, yes, did make my day less pleasant and did do the opposite of what I'd hoped to have going on, but my reaction made the day less pleasant for my family, and I felt terrible. I'm tough; I'll get over it. My sweet boys, though (and here I'm including my husband), they take everything to heart. I had to find a way to show my love.

Well, I went through the pantry and the fridge, wondering whether I could find something special to fix for dinner. (The stomach, being, of course, the most direct route to their hearts.) I started to believe that I didn't really have anything at all to fix, much less something special. Oh bother. I took something out of the freezer, but that won't be ready for another day or so. Then I realized that I could in fact make cheeseburgers, and that we even had some good toppings for them. That would be a good start. There was some red jello in the pantry, and I could add fruit.

Now, what for dessert? They deserved a good apology. We had received a plate of cookies this week and still had enough left for one each, but that wasn't from me to them. I really wanted to make up for my yelling, especially when Punkin told me very seriously this afternoon that he feels sad and even angry when I yell. OK, that's enough of that.

Then it came to me: the perfect Valentine's treat for my boys. I remembered reading a long time ago a tip about making heart-shaped cupcakes by under-filling the cups and placing a marble on the outside of each paper, inside the cup. The marble pushes the paper into a sort of heart shape, and with a dextrous flick of the icing knife-- voila! Beautiful pink hearts. I had enough batter left for a circle pan, which I planned to cut and paste into a heart shape, too, but Punkin Boy liked it just the way it was when it came out of the oven. I even found a handful of peppermints left over from Christmas; I crushed them and sprinkled them on top of each cake. (Punkin called them "the Mama cake and the babycakes"--I howled with laughter.)

The food turned out great, my meeting wasn't ruined by the messy house, and my husband brought me chocolate tonight. All is well and beautiful.