Since she was little (nine months? a year old?) Sweetsie has carried around a spit rag. Actually, she had one before that, but it wasn’t something that she had any control over. Mr. Handsome and I, whichever one was holding her at the moment, had to carry it around, slung over our shoulder to protect us, the furniture, a passerby from her copious quantities of spit-up.

But then, somehow, she got attached to the foul cloth, which was really just one of her cloth diapers. It couldn’t be just any of the cloth diapers, however. By the time she came along we had at least four different kinds: the simple weave that we had bought back when Yo-Yo Boy was born, some pre-folded ones that some friends handed down (I did my best to ignore the decade-old brown stains on them and they worked just fine), some thick, flannel ones, and some bird’s eye weave ones. Sweetsie decided it had to be the ones from Yo-Yo Boy’s time. Those diapers had been hand-washed for their first ten months of use, so they were quite worn out and were falling in action on a regular basis. Thankfully, they were interchangeable.

But now we only have three left. If more than one is laying about the house, she will sniff each one to find out which is the oldest and dirtiest, and that’s the lucky winner. It’s gross. Several weeks ago, one of remaining rags developed some big rips, but instead of going the way of the trash can like all the others, it made it’s ways into G-mommy’s hands and she sewed it up with red and blue stitching.

The spit rags have an important function: they enable Sweetsie to suck her thumb. She curls the corners and then holds it in her left hand (she only sucks her left thumb) and using her index finger she rolls the curl back and forth over her upper lip. Only once in a while, or in a state of desperation (and often it’s Mr. Handsome and I that are the desperate ones, frantically encouraging her to just try), she will suck her thumb without her rag and then she looks naked.

(Those are The Baby Nickel’s jeans, really. I don’t force my children to wear their clothes until they are totally worn out. I’m not that kind of a mother.)

And if she’s wearing a diaper and doesn’t have a rag, she get’s pretty creative.

Sometimes she breaks free and lives life on the edge.

But only for a little.

So why does she suck her thumb so avidly? Someone once suggested that it was because she was a third child and she got no attention and so she had to find some way to self-soothe. That’s probably it. I have so many kids that I don’t know what to do with them. I totally ignore them. They definitely don’t get any attention. Come to think of it, I don’t either. So why am I not sucking my thumb? Hmm. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. It might help.

I can be rather grandiose at times. I mean, I like things large. Flamboyant. Especially if it involves sugar and fat and chocolate.

Several years ago I made a chocolate cake for a family gathering at my house, and also in honor of one of my cousins who was having a birthday, though the real reason was the gathering. I don’t remember all the baking details, but what I do remember was that it was a four layer monstrosity with mint green frosting between the layers and chocolate icing on the sides and top. I chopped up Andes mint candy and sprinkled them all over the top. It was a towering confection. When I went to cut it, the handle of the cut-co knife disappeared into the cake and I had to use my bread knife (I think I’m remembering correctly).

The other day I made this cake.

I got the recipe from a Gourmet magazine, and it’s called Mile-High Chocolate Cake. The contents of the icing are almost unprintable, but I’ll try. The icing includes a cup of sugar, some flour, cocoa powder and unsweetened cocoa, milk, vanilla, and the main ingredient which is—um—butter. Six sticks of it. For real. I know it’s obscene and completely unnecessary and inappropriate. But I had never made an icing recipe calling for that much butter and I figured that I could probably learn something from it: either the recipe sucked, or it was fantastic and I’d been missing out on good chocolate icing my entire life.

And then we ate it and it was okay. Good actually. But definitely not fantastic. And definitely not worth all those calories. I cut the cake up in chunks, piled four large pieces on a plate and delivered them to a friend and wrapped the rest of them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer. Every now and then I pull a chunk out and cut it into slivers and serve it. The last time I pulled out a hunk, I gussied it up with strawberries from the garden and whipped cream and served it to some girlfriends. I didn’t tell them (well, one of them anyway, since the other one had been the receiver of the plate of cake slices) what was in it till their plates were scraped clean.

I think I have one more hefty slice of chocolate butter in the freezer. Want to come over? I’ll make you coffee to go with it.