The day the cheesecake exploded

 6. Make a cheesecake. (Lilly's request.)

So... that happened.

I have been wanting to make a cheesecake (from scratch) for a while now. I think it was actually on my list of New Year's goals in 2010 or something. When we were compiling our Summer Bucket List, Lilly suggested a cheesecake bake-off and I was thrilled.

When I realized that Summer was almost over, I felt like the World's Worst Mommy for not making Lilly's simple request a reality. We were grocery shopping this weekend and this box of No-bake Cheesecake caught my eye. I'm kind of a fan of short-cuts, so I tossed it in our cart and congratulated myself for earning back the title of Awesome Mom.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I'm making lunch for my little wubbies when the Cheater's Cheesecake starts calling my name. The box says it only takes 15 minutes to prep, so surely I could do that while our dinosaur nuggets are baking and while Dora is busy entertaining my kids.

I make the crust. Easy peasy. Time to move on to the filling.

Everything was going swimmingly. Ingredients combined. Hand-held mixer doing its job. We were well on our way.

Suddenly, I heard a loud thud from the living room and stopped "baking" to check it out. No biggie. Addie was just destroying the living room as per usual. I decided to bring her into the kitchen with me to prevent her from breaking all of our DVDs in half. I propped her up on my hip and continued mixing. I had just started to scrape the bowl's sides when suddenly everything went black.

It must have just been the coat of cheesecake covering my eyes because when I wiped it away, I could see that the bowl had some how broke and there was now cheesecake filling EVERYWHERE. On the walls. On the floor. On the ceiling. On me. My poor, poor Addie was covered head to toe. It looked as if she just went for a swim in a vat of cream cheese and sugar. She was screaming... and licking her lips... and screaming some more.

Lilly ran in to check on us and yelled, "Woah! This is crazy! You have cheesecake on your head, Mommy!"

I grabbed a towel, cleaned Addie's face and sat her on the floor. She was still wimpering, so Big Sis came to the rescue. "Here! This make her feel better," she said as she handed Addie a cup of orange juice. (Good idea, Lillian. I think I once read somewhere that orange juice definitely helps in large-scale cheesecake spill clean-ups.)

Well, now that Addie could see again, she was happy as a clam... a clam that was still covered in cheesecake from the neck down. She sat there licking her hands and spilling orange juice all over herself and the floor, while I struggled to clean up the congealed cheesecake disaster zone. Meanwhile, our dino nuggets burned to a crisp.

Once the kitchen was in decent shape, I hopped in the shower and corralled a very sticky Addie into the bathroom with me. She was awfully quiet while I was showering and when I peeked out of the curtain, I could see why. She had unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper and was now proceeding to eat every square inch.

I couldn't help but laugh maniacally. Cheesecake-covered walls and toilet paper eating babies. This is my life.

By the way, it's been six hours and I just found more splatters of cheesecake in my kitchen. I have a feeling that won't be the last time.