This flu takes the cake

P, figuring out this whole "food thing." He finally started eating solids at 14 months (after a nasty reaction to rice cereal at 7 months left him completely uninterested in food untill those awful bile filled memories faded... )



And speaking of bile :) P's had the stomach flu. Nothing awful, nothing projectile. In fact, he's unusually snuggly during the day, leaving me feeling a titch guilty for enjoying his pain... But his nights are a different story. We were both in the bath at 2 am last night after he spread his gifts allllll over us.

P usually dislikes me leaving (despite having No issues with it while in Florida!) and when he's sick he really hates it. Unfortunately, tonight was my coop shift. (E's not, um, attached, to the coop, so there was no way I could ask him to clean public toilets in my stead :) So, I left a weepy wee one and a determined father and had a lovely evening of quiet cleaning.

After my shift ended and the groceries were lugged upstairs, I smelled chocolate. P was GLEAMING. He hadn't gleamed all day (well, he was pretty psyched when his poo was solid today, but it didn't quite get a gleam going :). And E didn't wear the worn look he usually has after I've been gone either. Turns out, they had a Wonderful evening Cooperating. P even asked E to brush his teeth tonight instead of me. An unprecedented occasion.

So, apparently, after I left, the little man was quite beside himself. When he tired of angrily beating on Ethan, he turned to problem solving. He wanted to go stand outside of the coop until I was done. E said there was a restaurant next door that they could go to and watch for me while they ate. "No, Papa," E said P said, "I want you to think of a solution that I would like."

E's ideas weren't inspiring P, so he worked on a solution himself. And the most soothing thing P could think of was to have E count. Until I got home. So, he burrowed into E's arms and E wandered our flat counting. After hitting 400, he asked P what else they should do. "Just start back over at 1, Papa," P said with a sigh...

Eventually, soothed by the cadence of time passing, P plotted another plan. He told E that he loved me SO much that he wanted to make me something. A chocolate cake, in fact. Now, E doesn't cook. He can pour a mean bowl of O's, muddle his way through toast or scrambled eggs, but that's about it. (And even then he'd rather just order in :) So accepting a baking decree from P was a mark of extreme dedication. They looked for a recipe online, then started scouting ingredients. A deli run was necessary for two items. (There they also purchased snacks for the four year old that had been puking for three days and was therefore on a soft food only regimen today. Wanna know what they bought? POPCORN. Is there anything harder for the stomach to digest than Popcorn??? And gingerbread cookies. At least the ginger might help us tonight... :) Then they returned to bake. E admitted to knowing where none of the ingredients or mixing appliances lived. P knew it all. So E read the recipe, P got the goods and measured. Then the little man chose the bundt pan for the sheet cake recipe E had chosen - heehee - and they poured it alllll into the pan. Needless to say, it baked for about 2 hours :) and finished up right after I got home! P was So proud of himself.

The cake crumbled as I released it from its (non-buttered) pan, but P, ever the optimist, said "That's great that it crumbled! Now we don't have to cut it or anything!" He wanted no cake himself, said it was all for me as a gift. In fact, it was a birthday gift - he had decided today should be an extra birthday for me. Then he snuggled into my shoulder and told me he loved me and he hoped I liked my cake.

And while I typically have a rule about accepting food made by those with gastroenteritis, how can you reject a cake of love? Needless to say, it was delicious:)