Okay, so I am burning out.

OMG, I am SO tired of doing Verena's laundry, on top of the rest of the family's. I cannot understand why she brings her laundry down to the machines, but will not do it herself. American washers and driers are so much simpler than German ones. I am tired of hanging and folding her laundry. Cripes, I think I was doing MY whole family's laundry at age 12. UGH. The last straw was the cake debacle. I'm not so sure I can host another student. She wanted to make a birthday cake for the kids since I had sent her to Florida for the week of their birthday (spring break). It was last Friday, and we had a date for all three of us to go to the Helmond while the kids played at their favorite gym for 3 hours so we are on a time constraint. She asks if she should make it, and I say sure....but of course, she needs supplies. After a bit of a search to find out exactly what it was that she needed (it was cornstarch, not one of your usual vocabulary words) I agree to run out and get it for her. UGH. I do need to do my own work today. So, when I get back I find she has fed the kids a snack of cheese and crackers, telling them to leave room for lunch. Huns, I know of no 5-year-old that can do that. So, they are positively stuffed, and I must now hang around and dawdle until they are hungry so I can have any hope of getting something besides dairy in them today--which is what they have been living on for a couple of weeks. Dinner of course, will be pizza for them at the gym. So, since I can't really get into my work, with the time constraint, I decide to go sneak in a nap. Can I do it. Oh man, I am SO tired. O lay my head down, and not five minutes later I hear Verena calling for me. She needs that long loaf pan that all the German cakes seem to get made in. I tell her no one has that size here and to use the regular loaf pan, and put the rest of the batter in cupcakes. Disaster averted. I try again. She calls again. She simply MUST have a sieve with which to sift the dry ingredients. I tell her that the last sieve I had was given to the kids for the sandbox. Now you all know that I bake...A LOT. I never sift. My cakes are great. She's very upset. I give up on the nap and try to go get some work on the computer done (all this time the kids, thank God, are entertaining themselves. If they actually needed me I might have bitten their heads off. I did not want to bake today....but I am being drafted to do so.) But noooooooo. The cake is not done after the alloted time. She looks at me like I told her the wrong temperature to bake it at. Most cakes are baked at 350. Her directions said "flame 2". 350 was fine. It was the wider cake pan that was the issue. No worries, we just bake it longer..still...the drama. I try again to work a bit. But wait. No. She needs chocolate to melt and pour over the cake. I tell her to use the chocolate chips and add some cream so that it is easy to cover and cut the cake. No, she INSISTS on using bakers chocolate. I sigh deeply. look at the remains of the birthday cake I made for the kids--covered in melted chocolate (chocolate chips), and pull out the bakers chocolate. Yes, of course I have some on hand. I am a baker. Now I try to go get myself and the kids ready for our evening out....again she needs me. It tastes AWFUL, she says. I ask if she's added any sugar to the chocolate, and how much cream. She says she used the semisweet, and she did not know how much cream to use. It does look awful--like water got into it. She's already covered most of the cake. She's terribly upset, and I hear myself saying, well, I did say to use the chocolate chips (oh, bad mommy)Oh well, no bailing outta this one. I sigh again, and suggest cutting it now, while it's warm. She asks about candles (um, we gotta get outta here dear) and I simply say that I think we are beyond candles now. The cake itself is really pretty good, though she says it bears no resemblance to what it's supposed to taste like. Then, thankfully, it's time to pile in the car--me a very sad mommy. I seemed to have been busy all day, but doing someone else's work. When we get back, I get to clean up the pots and pans. Yesterday, she asks me if I had ever made a chocolate cake before (EXCUSE ME??). I said yes, certainly. It was one of the first cakes I made you. You loved it. The one with the chocolate chips and nuts on top, and the dates inside. She asks.."and you used that awful American baking chocolate"? Yes dear (but IN the batter, NOT as a frosting.). Oh.