Wasted time, apples and lotion

The apple butter was an epic failure.  I've very rarely made anything so tragically awful that I immediately throw it in the garbage, but that's what happened.  The recipe seemed like it should have been good, I just don't understand what went wrong.  Or maybe this recipe was for apple butter that tasted like you had a mouthful of cinnamon sticks and cloves.  My tongue went numb with the first bite, and no amount of apples and sugar added made any kind of a difference.  I pretty much doubled the recipe trying to get the spices to mellow out, and it's still gross.  Everyone told me "Oh!  Apple butter is so easy!  You'll love it."  It's not easy, and I don't love it.  I feel lied to.

The apple pie is sitting on the counter, cooling and waiting until after dinner, and I keep looking at it with nervousness whenever I go in the kitchen.  That's the problem with making something horrible, you start second guessing yourself.  Did I remember to put sugar in the pie?  Did I accidentally add to much salt?  Should I just go to McDonald's and order 4 for $2?

Since I spent 6 hours in the kitchen this morning, the rest of the house was left as the kid zone and I'm paying for it now.  There are crushed graham crackers in the carpet, cinnamon toast crunch under the couch and apple cores in the toy box.  That last one makes me anxious.  Jack collected the apple cores this morning from the counter as I was peeling and chopping, and I thought he threw them away (I even remember praising him, but distractedly. 'Oh what a good boy you are to help me!  Thank you!'  I'm such a sucker).  I look back now and wonder why in the world would I think that he'd not see them as treasure to hoard?  What if that's not the only place he hid them?  A week from now I'll be blogging about the wretched stink coming from the air intake vents in the bedroom.

Mitch was supposed to be napping, but I heard clinking noises coming from my room.  Clinking is never a good sound when Mitch is involved, so I ran in there to find that he had moisturized my dresser and everything on it.  Jewelry box, perfume bottles, framed photos, etc.  His face is glowing with a youthful radiance that can only be had for $20 a bottle and 2 year old pores.  Trying to wrestle him back into the pac n play was like trying to catch a greased pig at the fair, only without the judges ( I like to believe I would've got a high score if it had been judged.  He's still alive, after all).  I tried to salvage as much as I could by rubbing my face on his leg and arms that were thick with lotion, but it wasn't worth it because he smelled like an old apple and wet dog.  An hour later and I'm sitting at the computer getting wiffs of Ivan, and thinking that it's been days since he was even in the house- how can the baby smell like him?  Are boys really made of puppy dog tails?  I thought it was just a cute poem, but Mitch is proving it a scientific possibility.


I think I'm going to pretend that today didn't happen.  I'm going to clean up all evidence of it's disasters, and start again tomorrow with a fresh attitude, a new recipe and a baby with unbelievably baby-soft skin.    Unless the pie is fantastic.  Then I'll eat pie and call it good.  I can always BUY apple butter, right?