A few days ago we had a fiasco in the kitchen. I tried to make Christmas cookies.

I’ve never been the instigator of Christmas cookie making and decorating. It’s not rocket science, I said to myself as I hurried to the baking aisle of the grocery store. I assumed that all the Christmas cookie making stuff would be laid out clearly among the birthday cake mixes and muffin bags; whelp, I was wrong. I gathered what I thought was everything we would need, cleared my supplies with the check-out guy as they beeped across his check-out station, and ran home to make the end of naptime. Ellie woke up, our friend Aaron came over, and we began.  What a mess.  Here’s what I learned.

1. Putting only a little bit of flour on the bread board (or cutting board or whatever you’re using for your surface) makes for a sticky dough. Load on that flour, baby.

2. Flour the rolling pin, too.  Unless you want your dough to roll up instead of out.

3. Roll the dough nice and thin. Nice and thin. Really thin.  Or else this will happen:

4. Unevenly rolled dough makes for unevenly baked cookies. Duh. Please see above photo for an illustration of this point.

5. Embrace the free-hand cookie cutting.  Down with conformity; up with creativity. We ended up with a Christmas tank, a Christmas microphone, a Christmas armadillo, and this:

6. Embellishments should be made after the baking. Poor Santa lost all his whiskers.

6. Gel food coloring is not the same as icing. You’d think someone would have told me that before this happened:

and this:

Not. Attractive. At. All.

Yes. I got food coloring thinking it was icing.

So come clean everybody. Help me feel better about myself. What’s your best mess-up in the kitchen?

Multi-tasking is a skill that countless mothers have been working to perfect over centuries of baby-carrying. And I am no exception. I have cooked while carrying Emma.  I have cleaned while carrying Emma. And a couple days ago, as I dismantled a stacked shelf unit while holding Emma on my hip, I got to thinking. I bet there have been some crazy things done while carrying a baby. I’d like to know what they are.

So humor me here. I really am curious.  What is the absolute nuttiest thing you’ve done with a baby on your hip?