I’ve mentioned it time and time again here on the blog: I’m not a crafty person. But I wanted to do something crafty with the boys. A few weeks ago, BlogHer wrote about and linked up various (great) rainbow cakes. I immediately loved the one at SweetNicks. (I also immediately became a subscriber to that blog!) I saved it for a fun food craft to do after we got back from camp.

And here’s our rainbow cake experience.

I followed SweetNick’s advice and went with the Pillsbury cake mix. It took me two trips to The Store That Has Everything from Spray Paint to Food Coloring to find the Wilton’s Icing Coloring. Here’s my tip: It’s not in the “normal” baking aisle. It’s in the “crafting” baking aisle near the wedding stuff. Of course, as they just remodeled our store, it took me awhile to even find this aisle on my second trip after being informed I could most likely find what I was looking for by my fellow tweeple. (Thanks, all!) I also went with premade frosting/icing because I didn’t want to ruin the cake. I switched brands and went with Betty Crocker’s Whipped “Fluffy White” frosting because it is smooth. I used almost all of two jars to ice this six layer monstrosity.

(That’s what the Wilton’s Icing Coloring looks like so you know what you are searching for in the craft baking aisle. I still maintain that baking things should be in the baking aisle in the food section. But apparently this makes too much sense.)

The point of doing this edible craft, after all, was to let the boys help. And they did. They helped do the initial stirring, laughed as I used the mixer and helped put the coloring in each of the bowls. Here’s another tip: when they say that you don’t need a lot of each color, they’re correct. A toothpick dip in each was all I needed for all but the red. The red needed three dips. The boys loved watching the colors appear. I loved watching their faces light up.

As the cakes were cooling, we went outside to play. And my two loving sons, one with purple still on his face, had a loving moment. I live for these moments.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t let them stack or ice the cake with me. I had enough difficulty and I don’t regret this decision. Starting with purple on the bottom (next to my plum Fiestaware), I iced in between each layer. The bad news about my baking is that since I made my red layer last, there was a little extra batter in that baking pan. However, I didn’t check that cake separately when the others were done. As such, the top of the red layer deflated. I figured this would be okay as the red layer was the top layer. After I stacked them all the way to the top, I just added extra icing in the deflated hole. No one was the wiser. Except that I just told the whole Internet. Hmm. Anyway, you saw this picture on Wednesday but it belongs here as well. This was after the stacking just before I started icing around the sides.

The next day, the boys woke to a six layer iced cake sitting in the middle of our kitchen table. And they didn’t touch it. We had friends over for a playdate and cut the cake. It was beautiful.

And BigBrother was happy about it.

I’ve been asked, umpteen billion times, why I made a rainbow cake, why I baked a cake, why why why. Doesn’t anyone just bake a cake for no reason? I mean, I’m honestly not the biggest fan of cake. I prefer pie. But this Pillsbury mix with the pudding in it? That’s some soft, moist, delicious cake. And so, my reason for baking this cake with my sons is that I wanted to do something fun, something different with them. We had a good time.

And I got to have a healthy breakfast of coffee and cake the next morning. The coffee makes it a legitimate breakfast, right?

I’m glad I decided to go ahead and do this edible craft with my kids. Not only did we enjoy making it, we enjoyed sharing it with friends. Even if they did make fun of me for making a cake for “no reason” other than something to do. Sure beats normal crafts for us!

I had some Mommy Guilt going on last week. Being the end of the month, I had some important deadlines to hit and found myself overwhelmed with work at various points in time. Being overwhelmed with work usually leaves less time for playing, reading and the general fun sides of parenting than I prefer. But, the work had to get done.

And so, the Mommy Guilt started to creep in. I started thinking of all the things I could have been doing other than working. I could have been cleaning my house. Or baking cookies with BigBrother. Or doing puzzles with LittleBrother. (Playing outside wasn’t an option as it was nasty all week. At least I had that in my favor.)

And then I started thinking about all the things that Moms should do with their kids. You know, things that I simply have no desire to do. Mainly crafts. I’ve written about crafts before and how BigBrother seems to inherited my lack of a crafting gene. I just don’t really like crafts. I understand their purpose. I do like that they take up time. I do like that children gain tactile skills and learn other things when doing crafts. But I hate them. It figures, then, that while I was lamenting over things that I wanted to be doing with the boys (practicing t-ball, doing puzzles, coloring (which is not the same as crafting), running through fields of flowers), I was also feeling guilty for not doing things that I didn’t even want to do.

I was still feeling guilty when I went to a Dos de Mayo party at my friend Mandy’s house on Saturday evening. (What? You don’t know about Dos de Mayo? It’s what you do when Cinco de Mayo falls on a Tuesday and you know that there’s no way you’re staying up past bedtime on a weeknight.) Mandy had planned a little sombrero craft with a paper cup, a little paper plate, fuzzy crafting balls and glue. After the kids finished drowning their craft in glue, we sat back down at the table and someone let it slip.

“I hate crafts.”

I don’t remember who said it first but it’s like the heavens opened and sun shone down upon that table out in the backyard. Angels sang. Trumpets sounded. And then another friend of ours said, “Me too.” I think my jaw dropped before I admitted the same thing (and admitted that I was planning on blogging about feeling like a bad mom for not enjoying crafts this week). Of course, the husbands among us didn’t understand why we did them if we didn’t like them but, well, I can assure you that FireDad doesn’t enjoy them either. So, someone has to do it. We talked about it for a few minutes; those reasons that we do crafts with our children even though we really don’t enjoy the process.

And I felt like less of a Bad Mom.

This week, thus far, I have done some things that I prefer doing with the boys. We’ve finally made it through our pile of new books. We played some games. We sang and danced to make videos on the webcam. And I don’t think we’ll do any crafts this week. I’m not good at them. I don’t enjoy them. And really, there are other ways to learn. Maybe we’ll start doing young learning science experiments or something with letters. You know, things that I’m good at and things that I enjoy.

But I’m apparently not a Bad Mom for disliking crafts. (I’m also not a Bad Mom because my house is messy!) Hooray!

It’s President’s Day! (Which means no mail… something that I realized a bit too far into the morning and warned a few other twitter friends about.) But other than that, it likely means you’re left trying to figure out what to do with your kids if they are home. A trip to the bank is out. You can go shopping, of course, and hit some great sales. But what about really paying attention to the theme of the day.

We recently received four amazing books that really fit this theme. I’ll group them in twos (though the picture here shows all four).

1. Our Country’s Presidents(the newest version with Obama on the front including a foreword written by him) and Our Country’s First Ladies(not yet including Michelle) are both highly interesting books from National Geographic. Also, because of the book, I have now googled and found the argument over whether or not our state has produced eight Presidents or not. (Argument being over William Henry Harrison.) My favorite part of the book are the quotes included on most President’s pages. Take a look at this one from George Washington:

Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning may have great and durable consequences.

How very true. Similarly, the quotes in the First Ladies book were interseting but I loved the little tidbits about these important women. The stuff you didn’t learn in high school history. Like this one:

Mary Todd Lincoln, at five feet, two inches in height, would have been dwarfed by her husband, Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s tallest president at six feet, four inches.

I love learning little things like that one!

2. The other two books are a very interesting read. Dear Mr. Presidentand Dear First Ladyare letters to and from people of importance and everyday citizens alike. I found them to be an amazing little glimpse into the life and times of each era. One of my favorite letters was from the Merrick School Mothers Club in Syracuse, New York to Lady Bird Johnson in March of 1965. I don’t know why but it made me smile, especially seeing the work that Lady Bird Johnson did in her era. One of the harder letters to read was a letter to John F. Kennedy about a brother killed in Viet Nam. All of the letters give us that glimpse into a world which we did not live for even if we were alive at the time, we were not privy to the inner workings and mailbox of our elected officials.

And so, if you have time, run out and grab these books today. They’re likely to be on sale! If you don’t want to leave your house (as it is randomly snowing here), considering helping your child write a letter to our current President. Even the youngest of the verbal clan have something to offer. Perhaps he just wants to tell the President to remember to say please and thank you. Couldn’t we all use a letter that reminds us of the innocence of children? I think so.

(While you’re at it, write your letter to our President and our First Lady. What change do you want to inspire?)

As always, Kaboose offers a number of President’s Day activities for you to do with your children. We’ve already made an Obama plate so I think we’ll go with a “Yes We Can” can or an Abe Lincoln paper hat. Should be fun whatever we decide to do. (We might throw some snowflakes on the hat because if President Lincoln were alive today and wearing his hat outside our house, it would have snow on it!)

We’ll also be reading the books Duck for President and If I Ran for President. While it’s not currently time for an election of such nature, I think today is a good day to talk about such things.

As for some Presidential food ideas, dye some cupcakes red and blue and have a party after supper in honor of our Presidents, past and present. In fact, if you do this, let me know. I’ll be over.

I made Valentine’s Day cookies for the first time yesterday. They’re for BigBrother’s first Valentine’s Day party today. We also spent a large portion of yesterday afternoon making Valentines to give his classmates. As you know, I’m not a crafter. I’m also not a baker. (I burnt three of the cookies.) And, quite obviously, I am not a cookie decorator. (No, BigBrother didn’t help me decorate them. He cut them out but that’s my not-so-handy work on top.)

I’ve had a blast the past day and a half gearing up for today’s party. I don’t really know why. FireDad and I don’t even “do” Valentine’s Day between the two of us, preferring to save our money for our annual weekend getaway for St. Patrick’s Day. But there’s just been something fun about getting ready for this party. Picking out the “stuff” to make his invitations. (Blank cards, love bug foam stickers and alphabet foam stickers so he could “write” his own name.) Picking out the lollipops to go with them. (Swirl heart ones, my favorite as a kid.) Searching all over the state for heart-shaped cookie cutters. (I ended up buying a box of 101 cookie-cutters just to get one heart-shaped one. Seriously.) And then doing all of the preparation work with BigBrother. It was fabulous. For two non-crafters, we sure had a great time crafting.

Now I’m off to get him dressed in his shirt from Children’s Place and take him off to school… where he’ll hand out cards and eat cookies without me. Maybe that’s why I loved the process of doing all of it together with him… knowing I wouldn’t be there to watch the actual fun part? I suppose that’s just part of parenting: missing some of the good stuff.

All the same, I have a very happy BigBrother on my hands today. I’ll take that. I will.

Happy Love Thursday! [For more, visit Chookooloonks.]