Saturday 20 October 2012

Cave Man Turns Superhero


I feel like I have been grasping at straws to meet the recommended Vegan MoFo quota of 20 posts for the month of October. We went from 0-60 this week.

Unexpectedly, The Cave Man scored himself a full-time job! After being at home with him for almost an entire year now, this past week has been a huge adjustment for all of us. Now when I am getting tired out and frustrated, I can't tag team him like usual. If the dishes are piling up and the baby is climbing the walls, Cave Man isn't there to pick up the slack. When the kids want to play lego or barbies with Daddy, they have only 45 minutes to do so right before bed and they'd better make it quick.

So, while we are super excited for this development (and let me tell you, this job REALLY has it's perks!) it has been a long, rough week. So rough, that I almost sent the kids to school on a Friday that was not their day to go. I happened to check the calendar while they were noshing down their breakfast, only to see that it was not an "A" day at all, but a "B" day! When I tried to send them back to bed, they laughed at me.

Our little girl (Tiny Twirler) has not been sleeping well. Infact, one night it took her three hours of screaming at me that she needed to go pee EVERYTIME she got into bed. This is because of one accident. Suddenly, she is terrified of having another accident in her bed. That first night we did not do well. So we came up with a plan, eased her back into her routine, approached the situation firm but gentle, and our nights have been peaceful. Maybe I should say that the Cave Man's nights have been peaceful.

Usually, it's the Cave Man that gets up through the night with the big wee ones, because I'm snuggled up with the Wee Piglet and do not want to wake him, or leave his side just incase he does awaken. But now that the Cave Man has a job, I've been letting him sleep and taking over night waking duty. The only thing? Tiny Twirler will get up through the night and start fighting with me all over again, throwing all of our progress right down the swirling express.

To get to the real point I'm trying to make, we really appreciate the Cave Man for these full hours he has been putting in, the sacrifices he has made, and are impressed with him for still keeping all of his volunteer commitments. Basically, he ROCKS.

So we wanted to show him that. The kids and I planned a surprise.


I found this recipe here

This is the first gluten free, vegan cake recipe that I found via google. But it looked great, had a wonderful review, and best of all I had all of the ingredients for the cake on hand. So I dove in! It was easy, fast, and let me just say - the batter was like warm caramel. I had super high hopes.

The recipe says to split the batter in two 9 inch baking pans, but when I poured it in, there did not seem like enough! So, I put it all in one pan. Ooops mistake number one! So, as you can see in the picture below the middle was a bit uncooked, yet still it was delicious! I can not wait until I make this again (but properly!).



I did not however, have all of the ingredients for the icing! So I improvised (mistake number two). When I tasted the icing, due to my improvisation it was super bitter. I HAD to change something and fix it, and fast. I'm glad that they used beet juice for the color as well, because it inspired our dinner for the night. I totally recommend this recipe, but don't be foolish like I was and just follow the damn recipe.


Our wonderful artwork. We did a second one that had a mish-mash of fatherly poems written on it, and a stick figure family portrait. We freakin' rock!


I love the kids contribution, their paintings are so very sweet. That is Ape Boy's painting on the left, and Tiny Twirler on the right. I love them so much, they helped out all day and were super nice. Everyday I think that I could not possible be more proud of them, and everyday my pride grows. This adjustment is very hard on them, as it is on my husband. It is a wonderful thing, though.

Did I mention also, that the Cave Man's new job relates to food? Mm'hmmm, that's right baby. My man scored himself a job at our local health food store. I guess I'm really quite proud of my entire family. Each and every one of them. We all work hard as a team unit, and I wouldn't change a single, imperfect thing.

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