Grown-up?

In a couple weeks we'll attend an annual super bowl party at a friend's home.  They do a pot-luck styled gathering, where everyone brings something.  It's wonderful because the people hosting divide up the guests by last name and assign each group an item to bring and there is no switching or bringing extra. If your "group" draws a main dish and you make a lovely appetizer, too bad.    It's so they're not overwhelmed with 20 dips and two bags of chips.  

It makes perfect sense to mouse.  This year we were assigned to bring a dessert for the kids and a main dish for grownups.  The main dish for grownups will be easy for mouse.  Just need to decide between enchiladas or a pasta dish (like baked zitti).  Children's dessert required more thought.  Of course cupcakes could be a standard.  So, mouse decided to make Mud.  Not Dirt, but mud; there's nothing wrong with Dirt but mouse prefers mud.  Dirt is more crumbly while Mud is...Muddy?  

It couldn't be easier, a couple metal pie plates, some chocolate wafer cookies (mouse doesn't like to use Oreos for it, but you certainly can), some gummy worms and chocolate pudding.  Now you can go all out and make your pudding and even the cookies (Martha Stewart would add whipped cream so it resembles more of a trifle for kids).  But no....Just break up the wafers, add the pudding so that it's good and muddy looking and dump into a pie dish.  You scoop out the mud with a small spoon or hand shovel if you're really clever...drop into a plastic cup...Yes that bit should be done by an adult or older child.  

Some like to place the gummy worms on top like the image shown here, but mouse prefers to stick them under the mud.  Like when we were kids playing in mud, you'd reach your hand down into it and find worms.   

Now this should be clarified somewhat it's not a Mud Pie which is totally different.  Mud is eaten with a spoon never a fork.  

It's not the first time mouse made Mud, the first time she mentioned it to Daddy was when we attended a Halloween party and had to bring a dessert.  He was appalled at the idea, but mouse rather insisted and it was a huge hit.  He thought there wasn't an adult in the place that would touch it, but grownups were once children.  

Every party we've attended where there has been a kid's table full of kid foods, the grownups couldn't resist sneaking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a pig in a blanket.  It harkens back to a time when food was fun and not at all fussy.  Sure there are the parent types who bring a veggie platter or fruit salad, but when we do that aren't we saying this what we wish our kids preferred?  Sure, carrots and fruit are a staple here and part of a healthy diet, but even Princess given a clear choice isn't going for that, she'll snack down a pig-in-a-blanket over a carrot stick any day.  This isn't to suggest she won't grab a carrot stick..and mouse is always somewhat proud and completely surprised when it happens...

Of course, Daddy could play the "Master" card and overrule mouse's dessert choice but he won't because truth be told, he actually likes it too in all its wrong icky sweetness.