It has been a challenging week for the Giuliani household. I’m not sure if it was the weight of Madeline’s anniversary, or the crazy, stormy weather or the anticipation of trick-or-treating. But there were tears, and screaming, and yelling, and fighting, and refusals to go to bed, and refusals to wake up, and refusals to get dressed, and refusals to get undressed, and whining (oh the whining), and nightmares, and 6 am wakings, and stepping in cat puke. Always the cat puke.

Sigh.

But yesterday, we had two glorious hours of calm, creativity and cooperation. All thanks to Madeline’s concoction kit.

Madeline loves to create, and experiment, and explore, particularly with edible ingredients. So after years of her depleting my baking cupboard, we finally wised up and got Madeline her own stash. She loved it so much that “concoction ingredients” were on the top of her birthday list.

Her newest obsession is perfecting a functional (i.e. flight inducing) pixie dust recipe.

Of course, when cleanup time came, the concoction session ended poorly for everyone. Back came the screaming, and whining, and fighting, and complaining.

But, for those fabulous two hours, it was totally worth it.