What’s Baking this Weekend

It’s been a crazy several days around here. It all started on Wednesday afternoon, when my 5yr old Mr. G took a nap (very unusual) after complaining of a headache. He woke up with a fever, and missed homeschool academy on Thursday.

Thursday night, my 7yr old Miss M went to bed early. She woke up with a nasty, awful, cough a few hours later, and a fever of 102.9. We treated her symptoms to help her sleep, and went back to bed. She woke up Friday morning wheezing and struggling to breathe (though not so severely that we needed to rush to the ER right then).

I took her to the pediatrician, where she received 2 breathing treatments and a chest x-ray.

(I know, at this point, you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with baking…we are getting there.) After a few hours at the doctor, we headed home with an inhaler and an order for a nebulizer to arrive at our house something that afternoon. By 5pm, it hadn’t arrived. Poor Sweet Pea was struggling again.

Finally the nebulizer showed up, and at the same time, the doctor called to check on her. He decided that since her breathing had not improved at all, we should take her to the ER for further evaluation and testing.

sigh.

Fence took her, since I really needed to be with the baby (no milk pumped!). After 3 hours, he and Sweet Pea came home after another breathing treatment with different meds, and still no clue about what caused her to have the problems.

Saturday morning (yesterday) she was doing better, but not healthy… and this mama gets antsy when people are sick in the family. I’d already sanitized surfaces the day before. Fence was on top of the laundry. I finished running a few errands in the morning, and then as the awful wintry weather settled in yesterday afternoon, I decided it was time for baking.

Because when the weather is crappy, and the family is sickly, baking makes life better. Even if it is an emotional, psychological placebo. I needed a placebo. I need one still, as the kids are half-better, and getting crabby with each other. The yucky weather does not help. Baking helps, at least by giving a distraction from other things. The yummies at the end of baking are good, too. 😉

So yesterday afternoon, I baked. I’ve had recipes saved to try, canned pumpkin the fridge (I had a can in the pantry, used some for another recipe last week), and lots of bananas (great sale at the store, and we go through bananas like water with all the smoothies we make). I decided it was a good day for pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Because why not?

No reason, so I baked. And today I bake some more, like macarons.

They are for the feast of the Annunciation, coming up on Tuesday. Delicate blue cookies for Mother Mary. I imagine that if she could eat them with us, she would enjoy them. I can’t imagine not enjoying a macaron. They are crunchy, sweet, tasty little bites of goodness, with a creamy delicious filling between cookies.

You’ll just have to come back for a post about the macarons, because they are so much of a story that I think it needs a separate blog post (this is getting a bit lengthy!).

The baking has been good. We have lots of yummies in the house now, our attention was taken off yucky weather and nasty germs…and now the sun is out! All is good.