Why Moms Get Fat

Here's what some moms have been up to this week! (and my next OCR column)

Welcome to the next edition of “Why Moms Get Fat.” On our last episode, we discussed the impracticality and wastefulness of depositing children’s leftovers into the trash can when such slaved over, homemade gourmet could find a more appreciative audience in the mom’s mouth. (knowing nods and murmurs in the audience)

Today, we will explore the newest weight fluctuation conspiracy, backed by Seven Jeans and Jenny Craig: The Last Week of School.

Watch with us as we go into Supermom’s kitchen at night. It may not be as tidy as one would expect from Supermom, but we all can understand that Supermom told the housekeeper to stay home so she could attend to her own children’s last week of school treat delivery schedule.

Child number one hit mom up at 9pm with a “reminder” that two dozen brownies are due by 8am for the post-field-day, pre-popsicle party. No problem, Supermom’s thinking ten minutes later as she’s licking the spoon and sliding a metal 9x13 into a preheated oven.

But wait! Wasn’t she also supposed to send brownies to Child #2’s bake sale for the end of the year play? Or was it rice krispie treats? She settles on cookies-- homemade of course. With butter. And real vanilla. Because then the batter just tastes so much better, she proves via two-point shots of dough into her mouth.

9:35pm. Doing good. Still plenty of time to whip up some homemade candied apples. Of course, she could have bought them at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. But what Supermom buys a teacher’s gift? Supermom made the super child, so she will make the super gift.

She pulls out the familiar, karo syrup-stained recipe. And stands at a hot stove stirring for a full twenty minutes. Then dips, and scrapes, and sets, and chills. All the while spinning pirouettes through her sugar dusted kitchen to take out and reload batter-filled pans into the oven.

Nearby, adorable homemade thank you cards are printing off the computer as she begins step two (which is really step 146) of the apple project, and melts the chocolate to drizzle on top. Then sprinkles them with a delectable Heath crunch. Voila.

Taste test the cookies. Check.

But wait-again! Look at all that remaining homemade caramel, and warm, melted chocolate. She can’t just send it down the sink, into the cold and heartless disposal. Surely, there’s a better place. Of course! The pretzels! The pantry’s full of them!

And now, so is the counter, as she dips and drizzles dozens of salty sticks with splendid sweetness. Oh, there’s about to be a party in her mouth, she thinks, for all her labors! After all, she hasn’t had time to eat since noon--yesterday, when she downed a plate of her two-year-old’s soggy, cold, half-eaten dino nuggets.

Dang, those brownies look good, she thinks as she slices and plates them. And surely they won’t miss two more little (big) cookies at bake sale. Baker’s treat, right? By now, she’s polished off all the pretzels, taste tested the sole untagged apple, and what better way to clean the sticky, sprinkled counter than to just lick up all that sugar in long, deliberate strokes?

Finally, she’s done. It’s 12:45 am. She sinks into the couch with a reward for all her labors: a Tivoed back episode of Housewives on Bravo TV and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

After all, who said Supermoms had to be Superskinny?

Join us next time as Supermom creates an entire “healthy” meal out of findings from her car floorboard while on the go.