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This whole thing with Anja moving out was very odd. She just decided, very calmly, without any prior incident, that it was time for her to move out. No anger, no hysterics, no confrontation. But she couldn’t be talked out of this. The only time she’d get upset is when we asked why, and then she’d get very sad, her eyes would well up with tears, and she’d tell us she couldn’t take it anymore.

I was concerned about why she would say she couldn’t take it, was it something someone said or did to her? No, it was that she couldn’t handle us getting her in trouble all the time.

Anja is hard to describe to people who have never lived with her for more than a couple of weeks. She has been a handful her whole life; I posted on a messageboard when she was barely a week old that she was going to be a handful. And that she was. As a baby, she cried about things constantly. Not colicky crying for no reason. There usually was a reason, she just reacted to it so dramatically. When I nursed her at night before she started sleeping through, the only way she would be able to go back to sleep was if she was holding my finger. If I took away my hand, she would start squirming, and then fussing, and then crying.

When she got a little older, she would start having tantrums, ones that were very hard to control. Ones where she would scream, not cry but scream, and she would throw herself to the ground, would hit herself, would hit us. These tantrums weren’t limited to the safety of our home, either - she would do these things any time we didn’t do what she wanted. It took a couple of years to stop her from hitting herself and screaming for hours on end about as small a thing as not being able to pick up the cat.

She’s always been very mischievous; sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s cool, but many times it’s stuff that isn’t OK with us. Drawing on her brand new dresser with permanent marker. Using a rubber stamp all over her rug in her bedroom. Wearing her feria dress on her bike and ripping it up. Destroying something Isak had been working on building. Picking up the cat by the neck. Writing in our books. Drawing on the back of important papers. Stealing our money to use in a vending machine. The list goes on and on and on and on. And she almost always gets sent to her room when she does something like this, and this does not make the princess happy. At all.

She usually gets hysterical, but lately whenever this happens, she screams about how she can’t take it anymore. How she can’t handle it, how she’s always doing naughty things and we’re catching her, and she can’t take it.

And so she decided the other day she was just going to have to run away. When we talked about it and she realized that pretty much wherever she goes, any family would have rules, she decided then she’d just move to the unoccupied housing unit next door.

We talked about her plan, and much like she has a plan for just about everything, she had this all thought out. She’d take her clothes and some toys with her, and when she got hungry, she’d just come back home and eat here. Great plan!

The draw to living on her own was that there would be no rules and she could do whatever she want. Which led to the discussion of laws. And how when you’re in the safety of your home as a child, you don’t really have to follow laws, but once you’re an adult, you have to abide by the big, important laws. Like what?, she asked. Well, like paying taxes and not killing people and behaving yourself. All that was completely acceptable to her but then came the final, crushing blow.

“And you have to be 18 to live on your own.”

The next day came and when I came home from work, I asked very nonchalantly why she was still living here, wasn’t she moving out today? She shrugged and said, “Nah. I’m not 18 yet.”

I guess we’ll go over all this again in 11 years - hopefully by then she won’t still be rubber stamping her rugs, or if she is, she’s selling them as art on ebay.

It is a bad, bad sign when you go for a jog/bike ride and 4 black cats cross the road in front of you, and then you come home and break a mirror.

Poor B.

Anja has decided that she just can’t take it anymore, this, her life, her miserable existence with our family. 

So she’s moving out.

She’s packed her stuff in plastic bags and has given Daddy a kiss and just wanted to tell me that she’s going to miss us.  A lot.

But it’s what she has to do, because she can’t take it anymore, all this us getting her in trouble.

Again:

The recipe, as requested - some adjustments so that you don’t have the same problem I did with having too much batter for the pan:

Crust:
1¾ cups of Oreo crumbs (I scraped the cream out of the middle first)
1/3 cup sugar
4T of melted butter

Mix together ingredients, press evenly into the bottom and a little up the sides of a 9″ Springform pan.

Bake at 325° for 10 minutes.

Filling:

2 pounds of cream cheese, softened (4 packages)
1¼ cups of sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1T vanilla
¾ cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
2 cups chocolate chips

• In a very large bowl, whip cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy.
• Beat in sugar, a little at a time, until fully incorporated into the cream cheese.
• Beat in eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly mixed in.
• Blend in Bailey’s and vanilla.

Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over the cooled crust.

Pour in batter.

Sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake over a hot water bath at 325° for 1 hour, 30 minutes.

The other day while in a chat room for Navy people, I had a conversation with my neighbor that ended up with me wanting a cheesecake. A Bailey’s chocolate chip cheesecake.

I have tried for 3 days to get this cheesecake made. The first day my head was hurting so I lay down instead of cooking. Wednesday I was rarin’ to go but I couldn’t find the bottom of the springform pan I needed. Yesterday though, I stopped on my way home from work and bought a springform pan and came home and Anja and I made the most delicious, gigantic, yummy, gorgeous cheesecake.

There was too much batter than what would fit in the pan (it’s huge!) so there was probably a cup of batter left, and of course Anja was helping specifically so she could lick out the bowl when it was done. She had a few spoonfuls before I could get to the bowl, and oh my god, I hope I didn’t get my kid drunk.

Excitedly, I put the cheesecake into the oven and set the timer for 1 hour, 30 minutes with a pan of water in the bottom rack as recommended. After an hour, I peeked in and it was spectacular! It was rising and starting to brown beautifully. About 10 minutes later, I peeked again, and even prettier! Puffy galore! And then 10 minutes later, which was 10 minutes before it was done, I clapped in excitement as I gathered B and the kids around the oven to take one last peek. I opened the oven, and the scene that met me next was reminiscent of my childhood bedroom.

My cheesecake exploded.

There was cheesecake all over the oven. It was on the ceiling of the oven, on the floor, on the shelves, in the water bath. It. Was. Everywhere.

So close, and yet so far, and yet so not worth throwing away. So what if it was a little bit not quite done, I just let it cool off and stuck it in the fridge where I’ve been nibbling at it throughout the day. At least it tastes good. Even if it doesn’t look so good.

I totally got the best birthday present ever today.

Even if it’s a little late.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Thanks, Niki!!