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Traditions are a haphazard thing with me. Some of my traditions are based on activities the Meloch family did when I was growing up (birthday cake to Jesus, hiding Easter baskets) and some I picked up from various places that I have lived. I picked up one such tradition while I was in Germany.

Last night, Gabe said, “Mom, tomorrow’s December 1st and you forgot to get the chocolate calendars!” Boys after the ages of 7 love to be know-it-alls. They view themselves as so much smarter than their mothers and inform their mothers of this fact throughout the day.

I have developed the following response to this “I’m smarter than you attitude” based on education completed. For me, I say, “The day you start your Master’s Degree at University is the day you are smarter than me. Until that day, I am smarter than you whether you believe it or not.” If you did not go to college, you may adjust this remark to , “The day you start college or trade school is the day you are smarter than me. Until that day, I am smarter than you whether you believe it or not.”

Hopefully, by the time that day comes they’ll be out of the house and no longer driving you nuts. When I told Gabe this, he replied, “The day I start my Masters degree, I’m going to call you on the phone and say, ‘Mom, I’m smarter than you’.” I’m certain he will. The kid will probably get a phD, just to prove how much smarter he is than his mother. If he wasn’t so like his mother in doing whatever it takes to prove someone wrong, it would be easier to stomach.

Not wanting only to prove his mother wrong, last night he decided to prove his aunt wrong as well. Every year my brother-in-law’s mom sends me a wreath she makes from the pines on her land in Northern Minnesota. Whenever I open the box, the smell of home greats me.

Considering this a good task for Gabe, I told him to hang the wreath under the lights by the door. I asked him to check if his daddy had any wire and a wire cutter for the task. He declared, “I’m going to use a pipe cleaner, it has wire in it.” I was on the phone with my sister at the time and she commented that she didn’t think that would hold. After hearing this comment, Gabe was determined to prove her wrong.

He found a 10 pound exercise hand weight and tied it under a chair using the pipe cleaner to test the pipe cleaner’s strength. (The boy spends an excessive amount of time watching myth busters, his new favorite show, and is constantly relaying to me how the two guys have proven or disproved something.) The kid is destined to be a mechanic or engineer or maybe a mad scientist.

The wreath is now hanging by a pipe cleaner safely outside under the light. It looks lovely.

However, even though he had proven my sister wrong, he was behind the power curve with the chocolate calendars. Abby informed him of this fact, “Gabe, Mom buys the calendars in,like, August!” (Eye roll for emphasis)

She was close. Not quite August, but October. At the Commissary (military grocery store) they put out the German Christmas items at the same time as the Halloween candy. I buy them right away every year and store them away for fear of repeating the mistake of waiting too long and finding them sold out.

I first started buying them for Dale and I when we were assigned to Germany in the early 1990s. The calendars are a simple thin rectangle of cardboard with little doors to open from 1 to 24. Under each door is a piece of chocolate pressed into a holiday shape (present, tree, candle, etc.)

You eat a piece of chocolate and count down the days until Christmas. In my opinion, a fabulous tradition.

Dale loves to run. I do not love to run.

Zeke once listed our family by order of speed. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Zeke is third. Abby is fourth. Gabe is fifth. Mommy is last, ” he informed us all. When his two older siblings objected to being slower than him, he reluctantly rearranged the order. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Abby is third. Gabe is fourth. Zeke is fifth. Mommy is still last,” he said.

Admittedly, my last place position is warranted. Josiah has taken after his father and loves to run. Abby and Gabe have taken after me and run when they must. Zeke has been a bit of a tossup since he loves to run, but also loves to stop.

After watching Josiah run throughout the Cross Country season, Zeke declared he wanted to enter a race. So, Dale entered himself  and Josiah into the 5k Turkey Trot and Zeke into the 1 mile kid’s Turkey Trot in Fredericksburg on Thanksgiving morning.

Zeke lined up for the race with boys and girls 6 and under alongside his two handlers Dale and Josiah. The pistol fired and he took off at a sprint. It took Dale and Josiah two blocks to catch up with him. I saw Zeke pass the 1 mile mark with a look of pain and agony on his face, he was running hard.

Zeke Running with Josiah

He finished with a time of 10:45, 61 out of 145. All runners who finished received a medal. He was proud of himself.

Zeke's Finishing Sprint

Then “the losing someone in a crowd drama” occurred when Dale, Josiah, and Zeke  walked one way and I walked another. I lost them in the crowd of 2415 5k runners and their families. I was wearing a bright red jacket and hoped that if I stood in the middle of the road intersection ahead of the start, they would see me. They were on the top of the steps of the library in the hopes that I would see them.

I had both my and Dale’s cell phones and with the 5k race fast approaching, I prayed quite a few frantic prayers and asked various people I knew if they had seen them. Losing someone in a crowd is quite unsettling. Thankfully, they saw me and Zeke did not have to run the 5k.

The first runners to finish were two Kenyan runners from Chapel Hill, NC. They finished together at 14:35. It was amazing to watch the sprint to the finish. I saw Josiah just after 20 minutes. The guy next to him said, “Come on little man,” and started to sprint. I think he was a bit surprised when Josiah out sprinted him as well as the guy in front of him to finish at 20:11 (99 out of 2415).

Dale’s training this autumn had been a bit lackluster compared to Josiah’s. He finished at 24:17 (387 out of 2415 runners). This time I stayed where I was and let Dale find me. They all ate their bagels and cookies, drank their water and gatorade and got their turkey t-shirts.

The Happy Finishers

When we got home, Zeke was complaining to Gabe that he hadn’t gotten to do anything fun yet. Gabe replied, “What? You just got to run a race. That’s fun!” Zeke answered, “Running a race isn’t fun.”

So, the child remains an even division between Dale and I. He wants to run the race like Dale, but he sure doesn’t consider it fun. A bit of his mother in him there.

The children had a four day weekend last weekend while their teachers attended training. Three of them love sleeping in and enjoyed the lazy mornings. Gabe, however, likes waking up at the same time every day.

Before bedtime, I had informed them all that they could sleep in until 10. However, once they got out of bed, they had to take care of their chores and responsibilities before watching TV or playing Wii/DS.

I was surprised when I woke up that Gabe had not gotten out of bed at his usual early hour. I remarked about his sleeping in. He responded, “I woke up at the regular time, but you said if we got out of bed, we had to do our chores. So, I didn’t get out of bed.”

His logic and ability to find loopholes is quite astounding to me.

Zeke, my true night owl, has tired of his relentless early morning Kindergarten routine. He will not wake up fully when I call him, so I carry him downstairs to the table while he is half awake. He rests his head on the table and complains that it “hurts my eyes” in a whiny voice.

The other day as I picked him up to carry him down the stairs, he asked, with his eyes still closed, “Why do we have to do this every morning?”

Josiah turned 15 yesterday and requested a chocolate peanut butter cake for the celebration. A few months ago while researching recipes, I found a recipe for chocolate peanut butter cake that claimed to not only look good, but taste good. So, I figured I would give it a go.

I belong firmly in the camp of “better something taste good than look good.” This is different than the camp of “better something look good than taste good.” Most chain restaurants are in this camp.  There does exist a third camp of high achievers who strive for making food that “tastes good and looks good.” I am too lazy to join this camp.

However, I thought I would visit the camp for a day in an attempt to make this cake. My downfall from success is usually a result of my habit of skipping steps. “I don’t need to do that,” I’ll say. “That step is not necessary,” I’ll declare.

Time and time again, skipping steps has undone my success, but I still refuse to comply. My first famous cake collapse occurred on my nephew’s first birthday. I made a carrot cake at the last minute and did not allow the layers time to cool before I frosted them with cream cheese frosting.

The warm layers caused the frosting to melt and the cake slid into a messy pile as we sang happy birthday. That cake disaster did not end there. Unfortunately, the cake also gave my nephew an upset stomach during the entire eight hour plane flight home.

It is a tradition to retell this story at all family gatherings that have taken place over the last 16 years, especially if I am baking a cake.

So in the tradition of skipping steps, for Josiah’s cake I skipped the step of chilling the cake layers and chilling the frosted cake prior to the final fudge topping. In the recipe photo, the fudge topping drips over the top edge in a random pattern on all sides of the cake. This works fabulously if your cake is level. Of course, my cake wasn’t level. One side had no fudge drips and the other side had so much fudge that it was dripping off the plate.

After wiping up the excess fudge, I placed the cake in the fridge. Even though I had not gotten it quite right, it was far better than my usual efforts and I was feeling a bit proud. Therefore, I decided to show it off to my husband.

“Look at the cake I made!” I said as I opened the fridge door in triumph. He looked at it and replied, “What happened to it?” Thinking he was ignorant of the fancy way of pouring fudge topping over a cake, I replied, “It’s supposed to look like that.” He answered, “With a giant hole in the side?”

At this point, I actually looked into the refrigerator to gaze upon my glorious cake whose side was collapsed under the weight of the fudge.

Collapsing Cake

After the momentary shock, I pulled the cake out of the fridge, scooped up the collapsed part, put the mess on a plate, set it in front of Josiah and said, “Happy Birthday.” It was 8 am. Josiah ate his birthday cake and declared that even if it didn’t look good, it sure tasted good.