A Piece of Cake??!!!

Get ready to hear a tale, a sad tale, a frustrating tale.................

We had Sweet Pea's birthday party a couple of weeks ago and ordered his cake from A Piece of Cake. We were having a "Little Einstein" party and I wanted a cake shaped like rocket. I had found a website that had instructions how to make the cake, but I am not very crafty, so I called them because I had heard they were good (you bad people telling me lies!!!!) anyway I called and gave the lady on the phone the website and after looking it up she said they could do that and it would look even better than it did in the picture. I was so excited. You see since there aren't any party plates or things for Little Einstein everything was so plain so I wanted the cake to be exceptional.

Hubby went to get the cake (big mistake, ladies never let a man pick up a cake, they don't know what they are looking at) and brought it in and I immediately knew the cake was not like the picture I had given them. I was very disappointed with the cake.

This is what I got


This is what I asked for


The cake in the second picture was not done by a professional, it was done by a man who tinkered with cake decorating. So when the lady on the phone told me she could do the cake even better I honestly believed her. Well as you can tell the cake looked AWFUL!!! Total disappointment.

So we cut the cake and serve it and YUCK!!!! It tasted awful! There was so much red dye that the icing was bitter! So the entire cake, minus what a couple of kids ate went straight to the trash. Now I paid $70 for this cake and it was not edible.

A little later that day Pumpkin starts with a bad case of diarrhea. Surprise it is the color of the icing! This continues for THREE DAYS along with vomiting!!!! The poor little guy kept crying because his belly hurt. Then I find out that one of the other little one's had the same thing happen to her, only she threw up first.

So I decided to call Monday morning to A Piece of Cake and tell them what had happened. The lady (Karen) who identified herself as the owner listened to what I had to say and all she could offer was a discount on my next cake. Well I pondered this and I did not think that was sufficient. I mean two children got sick and I had to throw the whole cake away because it was awful. So I emailed her told her I wanted at least a portion of my money back to make up for everything. She did not respond so I called her late the next day. I spoke with her again and she informed me that the person who took my order said I asked for changes. WHAT!!!!!!! No I did not I gave her the website giving step by step instructions on how to do the cake! How can you screw that up. And as far as the vomiting, well she felt that it was more plausable that two children that had not been around each other for three weeks had contracted the exact same virus at the exact same time than the cake made them sick. Now I had told her I thought it was the amount of dye in the icing that made them sick, not the cake. She said anytime you tint icing red you get a change in flavor. She was so defensive and started yelling at me. I asked her point blank if she was at all worried that two children got very ill after eating her cake and she said "No, not during cold and flu season" She would not even acknowledge any responsiblility. So after getting nowhere with her several friends suggested the Health Department, because the children getting sick. The lady I spoke to at the Health department was so nice and after giving her every little detail including the time when the cake was eaten and when the symptoms started, she too felt that there was something there. I forwarded her the email I sent to Karen and she said she could tell just looking at the picture that there was a lot of dye in the icing. She called Karen and talked to her and Karen calls me and says she still doesn't believe the cake had anything to do with it but I can come and get a Thanksgiving cake for free. ARE YOU CRAZY!!!!! My child was sick for three days from your cake do you think I would subject him to that again??!!! She also tried to tell me that the order taker told me about that in advance and offered airbrushing, NOT!!!! Now what kind of nut would say "Ok, you can make my icing inedible for the color" Especially when the icing is the only thing little ones eat!

The mother of the other child called her to get the dye used to get more information about it since it made her daughter sick. She was RUDE to her and even tried to lie and say she wasn't there too bad she talks too loud because she heard her say she wasn't there and called the employee on it when she told her she wasn't there. So minutes later the other owner (Kathy) calls and threatens me that if anyone else calls about this cake she is going to file harassment charges on me. HUH?! I have not harassed her I called twice about a product and the other mother had every right to call and ask about the dye that made her child sick!

So in summary ( I know this is a really long post but I want this information out there!) DO NOT EVER ORDER FROM A PIECE OF CAKE in PELHAM, ALABAMA!!! You may not get what you want and you may get more than you bargained for the next couple of days.

Oh on a side note the manufacturer of the dye was contacted and he said used properly there should be no tase, evidently that is the selling point. Maybe they should call the decorators at A Piece of Cake and let them know that.

Hubby is in the doghouse!

Just look what he did to my baby!@#@#$!


I know he has been out of town for a while, but he knows I don't cut his hair like that! I had to cancel his pictures and won't reschedule until it grows out. It isn't even straight! I should have known when he didn't want me to go in something was up!

Now isn't this one much better


I get so upset every time I look at him. It is just too grown up! UUUGGHHHHH!
I was a little worried when we got his hair cut the last time (the second picture was taken that day) because we went from the Buster Brown cut to the bowl cut because I felt it was too short and made him look older. Needless to say I have informed him he is NEVER going to take him to get his hair cut again. That is my last baby damnit don't make him grow up so fast!

What's with Law Enforcement in Alabama

Let me just preface this by saying in my former life I worked as a Crime Scene Technician, so you know where I am coming from when I make my remarks.

My husbands car was recently broken into at work, in the parking lot in the broad daylight. His GPS and golf clubs were the only things taken of real value. When he contacted the police to make a report they did not even ask for any detailed information about the stuff stolen. They just wanted the generic GPS and golf clubs, no brands, serial numbers or anything else. I know Bham has A LOT of crime and this may be unimportant in the grand scheme of their day, but come on. Retrieving stolen property is something they can hire a civilian for. Point is as we were taught in school you have to go all out at EVERY scene because you don't know what you may find. It has also been proven that many criminals start off with stealing property and eventually graduate to more heinous crimes. What about the point system, or is that not here either. (Each crime is so many point and after a certain amount your punishment gets more severe)

After being irate about this the hubby tells me a guy at work got his home broken into and LOTS of expensive stuff stolen and they did nothing but write a report. WHAT??!!?? I know I hated going to Residential Burglaries, but come on are we just letting the crooks take peoples stuff that they worked so hard to attain?

Bye-Bye baby

It is time I say bye-bye to those days of ease when putting sweet pea down for night-night. He has crawled out of his crib every now and then, but we were putting off the transition into a toddler bed. This week that all has changed, he climbed out every time we put him in, so in the interest of safety we have transformed his bed into a toddler bed. Last night was the first night and let's just say he LOVES his new found freedom. He finally did fall asleep, in his bed, somewhere between 10 and 10:30 last night. At least that is when we stopped hearing the toys. And I can hear him right now playing with his toys, while he is supposed to be napping. This is about the time when Peanut and I began our regular "fights" about sleep. Peanut was never good about going to bed, but once he was in a toddler bed he got even worse. Sweet Pea has always been so good about going to sleep and now I fear that is all gone.

My little guy is growing up.

I still can't believe he will be two in two weeks.

School Board SUCKS!!!!!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I am having so many problems getting Peanut into the preschool program. Absolutely EVERYONE I have met that has dealt with them, in different states even, has said the same thing; "You have to FIGHT to get you child what they need." Now I don't mind fighting and I will continue to fight them until he gets the services he needs, however I think it is awful that he is missing out on help that he needs in the meantime. Why do they stonewall you? Why to they try to push you off and give you the least possible help and make you wait weeks and weeks before you can make another meeting to discuss the situation. Fist I was told the program was full and not accepting any other children. When I said that I thought if there was a need they had to find a spot, the tune changed. It took a month to get that first meeting. I brought with me all the paper work from the initial speech evaluation and the evaluation from Mitchel's Place (who by the way are awesome to work with). They took the report and looked at the diagnosis page and I think the woman said three or four times "There is no diagnosis, did you hear there is no diagnosis". That was our first clue this was not going to go as we wanted. After talking with them for an hour they decided they needed to do some "Testing" of their own. Although I didn't know what else they could test, I said ok. Three weeks later we go in and they do their tests. The same one's he already had done at Mitchel's! Which I have been told standardized test completed within a year of the test are not valid, but whatever. So they decide to work with him in his "Natural Environment", which in this case they considered a preschool that he had attended one day as his natural environment. (If you are following this we started the process in the beginning of July and as you can see by this time it was September)
We decided to go with it and see how things went. In mid October we went for a follow up with the psychologist and he was then diagnosed with PDD-NOS. The diagnosis was given after another evaluation session with the psychologist and a review with the therapist that he had been seeing since the beginning of August. We were told that he needs to be in a classroom with teachers who are trained to handle children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. So back to the School Board we go.
We meet again and they pretty much told me they will not put him in the preschool period! They feel he is making progress with the people they are sending into his preschool for a half hour two days a week. These women who have each seen Peanut four times for a half hour each feel that they have a better grasp of where he is and what is best for him than either me or the therapist who have been interacting with him since July. Now if you ask me I think there is something wrong there! The notes they send home say that he does all kinds of things that neither I nor his REAL therapist have seen him do. Makes you wonder if they are fudging a little. Case in point the one lady said he told her about his Halloween costume, funny I have been prepping him for two or three weeks and I still can't get him to tell me he has a costume on. When I called her on it in the meeting she said that he said he had a pirate costume on "well at least I hope it was a pirate, because that's what I said it was". HELLO! You just said it right there you told him it was a pirate and we know he has issues with echolalia! It's like they never read the report that was given to them! I precede to tell them I think it stinks that we are supposed to consider what's best for the child and I just don't feel that is a factor here. Oh, that one lady was sooooo smug and kept telling me they have to follow the law, which they are as she says! Problem is the law is written so broad that it is open to interpretation! To this she tells me to write my congressman if I want it changed. B*TCH!!!!!! Now I have given the reigns to our Psychologist and she is going to see what she can do. Next step is to go to a lawyer.

Why do they have to make this so hard, aren't we already dealing with enough sress to add this to it! As and old friend would say "Rat Bastards"!