It all started with a good idea.

Okay, sometimes I get an idea in my head that I think is so great, so genius, so beyond the realm of good ideas that it is surely going to win me that coveted Super Mom award.  I imagine it will be so much fun and so easy that I get gitty with anticipation to share it with my well-behaved, calm, low-maintenance kids.  I imagine my children crowding around, their smiles, their hugs, and their kind words as they enjoy and bask in the glow of what I have designed (okay, bought) for them with all my love for them in mind. But then reality slaps me in the face, always too late, and I realize how very, very bad the idea really was. 

Cookie decorating may top the list of really bad ideas to do with young kids ~ especially when black frosting is involved.  Yes, I concede it was bad from the start. Yes, I admit I didn't think it all the way through.  Yes, I confess it was not my shining moment for brilliant ideas.  

So, I bought, from the grocery store, a Halloween kit for decorating cookies. The cookies (shaped like pumpkins, bats, and ghosts) were already cooked and the kit came with orange, white, and black frosting.  How much easier could that get, I ask you!  I planned to bring the kit to the Berg's house on Halloween so that all the kids could partake in my purchase of a great Halloween craft. But, I forgot the kit at home on Halloween ~ Holly, you can thank me with a Starbucks gift card ~ and I didn't remember until Thursday night.  Since the cookies were already baked, I had to use it now or never.  Ben was at school on Friday, so I let Cailey decorate three cookies ~ at least I was thinking a little ~ and saved three more for Zachary to decorate when he came over.  

Here's where the plan went very, very wrong.  I picked Ben up from school on my way home with Zach and Cailey.  We left the cookie stuff out knowing Zach was going to decorate his when we got home.  But as soon as Ben saw the cookie stuff ~ well, it was all down hill from there.  I learned quickly that Ben and black frosting DO NOT MIX!  Ben had black frosting all over and the more he tried to lick it, the more it spread all over the place.  Ben wanted to decorate a cookie (duh) but couldn't squeeze the bag so he decided to lick the end of the frosting bag instead, Cailey was yelling (and then crying) because Ben kept touching/messing up the cookies she decorated, Ben wouldn't stop touching the cookies that Cailey decorated because he was "helping", Zach was getting black frosting all over his clothes (does it come out in the wash?), Ben spilled the sprinkles all over the floor and a cookies (yes, frosting side down), Cailey wanted to use some different "tools" to create her masterpiece, Ben wanted to eat a cookie NOW, Cailey stomped up to her room because Ben decorated the pumpkin that she wanted to decorate... and I was so worried about keeping the black frosting contained (and getting those pictures to commemorate the happy time) that I got all stressed out and neurotic and this scene unfolding in front of me was definitely not what I had envisioned for this particular craft!  

And the worst part: after the kids decorated the cookies, the cookies had so much frosting on them that one cookie was more than any of them could handle and now the remaining cookies are sitting on the counter ...calling my name... begging me, I tell you, to devour them... one by one...each yummy pumpkin, each yummy ghost, each yummy bat is disappearing into my belly. Damn those Halloween cookies, damn those good ideas!