It’s only once a year. Thankfully. Once a year, there comes this week, a week with two birthdays, evenly separated by V-day. And once a year, I seem to conveniently (or willfully) forget about the year before and make a classroom treat that turns out unsightly or messy or just not quite what it was supposed to be.

The irony, of course, is that I don’t even really like to bake. I don’t know why I do this every year.

Tomorrow marks the end of what always feels like a marathon week. This time…

• 1 batch candy bar brownies made (bday sleepover)
• 1 batch oversized cake pops made (class bday treat)
• 1 sleepover guest with stomach flu
• 1 house member adopted the stomach flu
• 1 batch chocolate oatmeal muffin tops made (V-day breakfast)
• 1 class worth of V-day cards scanned, prepped, and printed
• 1 batch chocolate oatmeal mini muffins made (class brunch)
• 1 batch white chocolate “trash” (Chex mix) made (V-day gift, but bad for me… because I eat it)
• 1 jury duty summons attended
• 1 patchwork pillow quilted, finished, and given
• 14 Bit House cards sewn, signed, sealed, and mailed
• 2 auction donations completed and turned in (almost)
• 1 full week of work underway

And then came tonight… the next batch of cake pops. Trying to learn from what someone convinced me I had done wrong with the first batch (though the kids LOVED those), I made them differently… and they are a disaster. They are soft… more frosting than cake. In retrospect, it’s clear that the consistency of the first batch was right. The first batter didn’t love the sticks because the first cake balls were super-sized… not because the batter didn’t have enough binder. Now I’ve got 30+ soft, stickless (by choice) cake pops. I’m not sure what to do. They’re cooked. They’re edible. They’re just cake and frosting… just too much frosting, so they feel a bit soft… a bit tacky…

One kid ate his and is so excited to take them to school to share for his birthday he can’t stand it. The other kid ate his but was clear that the ones for his class treats were better. And when I jokingly suggested I just buy and send a bag of Oreos, he said, “Well, you could do that.”

I did what most moms might do at the mid-point of a week like this… cried!

There is still one more batch of something to make. But when I asked if he just wanted his birthday dessert to be at whatever restaurant we end up at, and he said, “yeah, sure,” I waffled between taking it personally and just being simply relieved.