You know, like a "very special episode of Home Improvement." Seriously? You're gonna take on serious subject matter on "Home Improvement?" Well yes, this Thursday's installment is semi-serious. Not serious in the "oh crap my arm just fell off" off sort of way, but in the "well that just sucks" kinda way.
My twinkies just turned 4. On Tuesday we had their 4 yr old checkup. We did the complete physical, including vision checks, blood draws, urinalysis and a hearing check. That last one was where we had a problem. Twin A all but failed her hearing test.
I stood just outside the door of the tiny room where they were giving the test. I could only see her little legs casually kicking as the nurse stood in front of her, operating the machine.
"Raise your hand when you hear a beep."
Nothing
"Come on hunny, let me know when you hear it."
Still nothing.
"You can't hear that?"
"What about this?"
At this point tears are streaming down my face. The nurse looks back at me and says,
"We're gonna close the door now and try this again."
Twin B looks up at me and say, "I could hear it Mama. Why can't she hear it?"
I had suspected that Twin A had some sort of hearing problem but ignored my instincts and let other people, ahem, tell me that it was nothing.
All of those times that she asked for a song or the movie to be turned louder, I told her to simply pay attention more.
All of those times she'd respond to my questions with a "what?" or "huh?" I'd brushed off as her being inattentive.
The speech problems, I let people tell me that it was normal and that she'd grow out of it.
"Don't compare the girls. They are different and will develop at different rates." But I knew something was off. I wish I had done something about it sooner.
Twin B came home and proudly recited The Pledge of Allegiance. When I asked Twin A if she wanted to do it to, she looked at me blankly and said, "I've never heard that before." Cripes, how much has she been missing?
How many times did she go to time out for "not listening," all the while, she simply couldn't.
I'm fairly certain I won't be getting any Mother of the Year awards this year. What can ya do? She more than likely will not remember all of this stuff when she's an adult, but I will. Ah yes, nothing like parental guilt.
So yeah, these were my Thoughts on the Pot today...actually, they've been my thoughts since Tuesday morning.
I realize this is not a fatal diagnosis. I realize that there are other children with much more serious issues, but this is MY kid so it's a big deal to me.
The cake itself was alternating layers of vanilla almond and chocolate almond cake (one twin prefers vanilla, the other chocolate) with alternating fillings of whipped ganache and almond cream. Seriously, yum. I also tried my hand at modeling things out of gum paste. 
It is actually a lot easier than it seems. The twins love the movie "Ratatouille" so that was the theme of their cake and we made our own pizzas to keep with the chef theme
Unfortunately he lost his head in "Pam falling out of the cabinet" incident and I had to quickly make a new one which did not turn out so cute...eh, whatever. 
This, my friends, was an action shot. Seriously. I know, right? I should like, win awards for my stellar photography. Stop laughing.
I saw the girls drive their Jeep behind the bounce house. Then I heard cries for help amidst giggles. This is what I saw. My brain could not figure out how they possibly had accomplished a wheely in their Barbie Jeep.
It wasn't until I came around to the side, seeing The Dude nearly in tears from laughing so hard, that I saw how they had done it. They had driven UP AND ONTO a big ball. They wanted to do it again and again.
