Just when it was all going so well...a very dramatic story!!!

I think the success of the space cookies gave me a little too much confidence, or maybe it was how good our 7 children were today, or perhaps it was just my own desire to do it.... I don't know, but do it I did!!!

I thought...how much fun would it be to make a ginger bread house with the children!!!
To be fair it was, they were good and so excited to do it. The kids couldn't believe we were making a "bic bic house" as they called it (they always call biscuits (cookies) Bic Bic's) .....Icing, candy, Bic-bics and building a house all in one...WOW it was just too much excitement for a 2 year old (let alone 7, 2 year olds) to contain.

Just as we were sitting back to admire our (very pink) masterpiece a little girl who we'll call 'Gretchen You-you' (a very very good little girl I might add) decided there just wasn't enough pink icing on it so before I could stop her she had grabbed the squishy tube in her clenched fist and struck the roof of our darling little house with all the strength a 2 year old can muster.....needless to say.....

Our house came a tumbling down:-(

Now considering she HAD been told not to touch anymore she may have needed a firm "oh dear, look what you did" but she looked at me with her big brown eyes, then turned and saw the broken house she had been so excited about and her normally bright face fell, it's like you could see her little heart plummet to the floor, and then the bottom lip started quivering as the other children gasped crying "look wha' 'Gretchen' do' and 'oh silly' and they all look like they are about to cry, and I just want to put my head in my hands because we'd been working at this for a long time and I was pretty excited too but all I can think of is, oh my goodness, this poor little girl who feels like it really is the end of her little world because she went in a bit too enthusiastically with the tube of icing. It brought back memories from my childhood and I knew how she felt and in that moment I knew that this could stay with this child for life, I remember every single time I ever got told off or made a mistake like this...this could scar her forever!!!!!
So with a bright voice I say,"it's ok, it's ok I can fix it, let's see how to fix it" so here I am, (on my own for this whole time I might add with the kids) trying so hard to concentrate to fit the pieces back together and get them to stick ( trust me at this point I am REALLY feeling the pressure..I have a room full of toddlers dreams resting on MY shoulders) five of them are huddled around, watching intensely for 10 minutes as I keep fixing it and then it falls apart again, and again and oh no there slides the roof again, oh and the walls have caved in. Meanwhile two of them are being very distracting playing with cushions in the corner and one little girl (who we'll call 'Maria' one of the five huddled around me) is quite happy because as I concentrate she is getting away with dipping her finger in all the icing that's got on the table and eating it. I realize what she is doing and say "Maria, do you think you've eaten enough of that icing now?" she replies "no I don't think so, my tummy hurts which means it needs lots more" then gave me the cheekiest grin and I couldn't help but laugh.

Well after many tries I had to break the news to the kids that I am not as amazing as they think and I couldn't fix the ginger bread house (maybe under different conditions I could but not this time) and 'Gretchen' starts to cry and it breaks my heart but THEN I say "But it's all ok because that just means we have to eat it all this afternoon" And suddenly the child who had committed (what was to them) the worse crime possible, became the hero and everyone was happy.......The end


In other news the children (and us) had an exciting day because today is DECEMBER 1st which meant we put the tree up in our room and lots of decorations and started playing Christmas music and learning Christmas songs and all this makes me very very happy!!!
This is one of the kids decorating our little tree