Look, Mom! My First Pie!

My mother is famous for her homemade pizza. In high school, my friends would come over to watch The Real World on Tuesday nights and they would line up by the oven the minute she said it was done. These little parties grew (and contained enough hungry teenage boys - and girls!) so much that the first pizza, cut into eighths, wouldn't be enough for everyone to get a piece on the first round. Eventually it got to the point that we had to make four pizzas just to feed everyone and have some leftovers (the leftovers are SO good). While my mother is a very patient and giving person, there was no way she was going to make four pizzas each week for my friends without my help, so just like that, I became her little pizza apprentice.

At first I would just help mix the simple ingredients of yeast, water, oil and flour and let her do the heavy lifting of kneading the dough. But then I started to do that as well and by the time I left for college, I was getting pretty good at making dough. Of course these pizza nights continued whenever I was home for a visit. Even in the first few years after I got married, a night of having friends over for pizza was not uncommon whenever I happened to be in Yankton. I learned right and I learned well and I make damn. fine. pizza. Have for years. Just like my mama!

What my mom never taught me to do, though, was make pie crust. Just like her pizza crust, her pie crust recipe is simple and amazing, but I never once helped her make the darn thing. I have watched her make many a pie over the years and helped with the filings, but for some reason (uh, because she's GOOD at it?!), she always did the dough.

Somehow, in the almost six years of my marriage, this lack of skill has never been an issue. I make plenty of sweets and desserts, but I've never really had to make a pie because other family members do that when we have gatherings and it's not like Ben to request such a treat. But yesterday our neighbor offered up his rhubarb patch and we just so happened to have a huge container of strawberries in the fridge that Ben had just purchased and so he suggested, ever so innocently, that a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie would be good. Good?! We love that pie. Ben's grandma, Louise, makes it and it is my favorite thing ever. But me? Make a PIE?! Pie means pie crust and I had never even attempted a pie crust before, much less a whole pie and our favorite pie at that!

Like I do so often, I called my mom to get her recipe. She emailed it to me because my arms were full of screaming kids and when I looked at it last night, she added this little note to the end: "Good Luck, Betty." Funny lady! It actually took me a second to get the joke and then I snorted when I did; it was quite possibly the funniest thing I've read in a long time. But wouldn't you know it? It made me even more determined to make the pie.

This morning I made a quick trip to the store for cornstarch for my filing and then I followed the steps on my great grandma's recipe for pie dough. As promised, it really was simple. After it chilled all morning, I set to work rolling the dough, adding my filling, and putting on the top crust:

Here is what I learned. Even though my I've never made a pie crust with my mom, I have watched her do it enough that the whole process kind of felt familiar. I formed the dough into the same round disc like she does and used the pie plate to measure out how big my circle actually needed to be. Now I highly doubt she would have ripped the top crust right in the middle or flutted the edges so poorly that the juices ran over in the oven, but hey - this is my first pie. Give me some credit, would ya? I mean, it did look like this when it came out of the oven:

Not bad, eh? Except for those darn edges. Oh, well. That is what self-cleaning ovens are for as far as I'm concerned!

We let the thing cool, although I thought Harrison might dive in the minute he saw it. "Oh, wow! Look at that! I love pie!" is a rough transcript of what he said upon first seeing it. So if my husband hasn't been requesting pie, I guess I can count on my son to pick up the slack! It probably doesn't help that we have a Backyardigans DVD where they make pie. Like a samurai! Yes, samurais who make pie. And now HD is a bit mystified, it seems, that his mama, too, can make a pie. Does that make me a samurai in his eyes? Awesome!

Now, I need some of you pie making people out there to tell me what in the world I did wrong, because proud as I am of my first pie attempt, I'm a bit baffled as well. The thing tasted amazing. The crust on top was yummy and flaky and the filling was delish, too. Here's the only problem. It looked like this:

There was no way I was getting a piece out in actual pie piece form. It was just a big old mess. And what was left in pan was super juicy, like this:

Not that we really cared. We threw some ice cream on top (except for HD, who refused ice cream. He said it did NOT go on pie. Ben & I did not listen to that, by the way), and all three of us pretty much inhaled it.

So it was edible and enjoyable for the palate, if not the eye. But if you have a hypothesis (another word Harrison used today - thank you, very much, Dinosaur Train!), please share!!

So yes. I made a pie. And I have a feeling I might just make some more. It didn't take me that long to get good at the whole pizza dough thing - just a few years. & I doubt my boys will complain if I keep practicing my pie skills even if it takes that long to really get the hang of it. Everyone keeps telling my husband he's too skinny - maybe this will help.

Good Lucky, Betty! Ha!

UPDATE: Shhhhhh! I had a piece of pie for breakfast the morning after making it (oh, come on. if doughnuts and danishes can be breakfast, so can pie!), and it came out in pie form! My mom thinks maybe it wasn't 100% cool & that is why the juices ran so much. I guess next time I'll know that three hours does not automatically equal ready to eat temperatures! But, yummmmmmm - such a good breakfast treat! 

No Ifs Ands or Buts

Warning: I am about to brag up my kid for a bit. If this kind of thing annoys you, feel free to skip a few paragraphs (or the whole post!).

Harrison is amazing. As in, the kid has many talents, but one of the best might be his uncanny ability to know where we are. Driving around town he can tell me that that church is where we had Quinn's birthday party (in October!) and that church is where we attend MOPS meetings (twice a month). He knows, by name, Russ's Walgreens, and Runza. Last month, he flipped out on me in the car because I took the "wrong" (i.e. different) way to Kearney and earlier this week, as he drove with his grandma to Milford, he asked her, "Grandma, where are you going???" when she had to turn south for a detour. Seriously - who needs GPS when you can have HDW in the car with you?! I am learning, by the way, that I have to mean what I say about where we are going because clearly he won't be fooled if I fudge it a bit.

Harrison's elephant memory also applies to events/people/food/things at certain places. He remembers that the doctor's office has fish even though (until recently) he was only ever there every few months or more for well checks. He remembers that eating lunch with his friend Blake most likely means ice cream as part of his kids meal, even though, again, this only happens once every few weeks. Tractor Supply, where Ben took Harrison two years ago, is where they have the baby chicks. And don't even get me started on the Children's Museum here in town. I cannot get within a five block radius of the place (actually, sometimes I can't even start driving to the west side of town) without him asking about going to see Ms. Deb at the Museum!

Although he doesn't like to wear it, Harrison has a t-shirt that reads, "World's Greatest Brother" that we got for him way back before Raegan we even born. It should probably also say Proudest and Most Attentive. He loves to know what Baby Girl is doing. He also loves to call her Baby Girl ("What's my Baby Gurawl doing, Mama??") And Raegge (pronounced Ray-gee). I started that, by the way, and I hope she doesn't hate it, because I'm afraid it is stuck seeing as that is pretty much all Harrison & I call her all day long. But yes, HD loves his baby sister. He loves to be in her face and space, and for the most part, she's happy to have him there. She gives him the biggest gummy grins and watches his every move. If I so much as mention that I need to check on Raegan, because I can hear that she's awake after a nap, Harrison drops everything and goes running for our room where she's sleeping. He also wants to "nurse" her which usually consists of holding her on the boppy for approx. 30 seconds while he rocks and sometimes sings to her. Makes me smile every time.

Harrison is a wordsmith. He loves to talk, is pretty darn good at using his imagination, and loves books. As an English teacher, this makes my heart swell with pride. And again - the memory! He knows many books by title and by page. If you skip a page in one of his favorites, or just one that's been read to him more than once, he'll know. And tell you! He can finish the ends of lines in a lot of books too, so a lot of my reading trails off halfway through a sentence just to see if he can pick up from there; with certain books he can do this on every page. Ironically, one of the books he is best at "reading" is called Boy's Potty Stars and is, duh, all about potty training. Seeing as we still seem to be light years away from potty training ourselves (I mean, him!), it strikes as me funny that this is the one book he knows front to back.

Like his dad, Harrison is always on the go. If you've ever met my husband and seen him sit, you'll know where Harrison gets his energy. Ben does not just sit. He has to be shaking (jiggling?) one foot or the other at all times. So no, it is not a mystery as to why both of my children are always on the move. I watch Harrison with his constant energy and his already apparent love of sports (the kid is pretty good with his Little Tykes basketball hoop and even our chiropractor was impressed one day when Harrison threw a football to him) and I can only imagine what he might accomplish someday on the field or court (or stage or classroom or a mountain!).

I'm writing all of these things because there are a lot of things about being two (and a half!) that are hard. Being the mama to a two (and a half!) isn't particularly easy or pretty either, some days. But what I'm trying to see and remember is that there are some pretty outstanding things about being this age and stage, too. All the hard stuff shall pass, just like everything else in life. If we can just do our best to settle and focus on the good, no ifs ands or buts, then good we shall have. Well, most days, anyway!

Seeing Red

I blame Pinterest for my latest demise as a parent. If it weren't for Pinterest, I would have no idea what a sensory bin/box/tote is and would have never dabbled in such. Harrison would have just had to wait until he was big enough for preschool and could go to town "sensing" in some place other than my living room. But, seeing as I was hoping to put Pinterest to use beyond wasting my precious free time, I tried to be a fun, care-free, no-I-don't-mind-if-you-throw-crap-all-over-the-place mom, not once but three times. Here's how they went:

The first time Harrison and I made a sensory bin, it looked like this. Simple and easy enough, we just collected various nature items (sticks, rocks, leaves, feathers, etc.) during a walk to the park and then tossed them all together in a diaper box when we got home. I kept him and the box of goodies contained on the sun porch and he had a grand time dumping out the whole collection. Pretty sure he managed to shake loose every last piece of dirt that was clinging to the roots of the grass clod we collected, so he is thorough to say the least! After a couple days of dragging this box around (and after Mama secretly weeded - ha, punny - select messy items out of the box at night), he lost a bit of interest.

Our second sensory bin was very much Pinterest inspired. I took the time to dye rice with food coloring and rubbing alcohol and then arranged it all pretty-like in a plastic bin to look like this:

Add in the little sand toys, a fake flower, and some plastic ice cube thingies, and he really had a great time playing the first time I unveiled it. As in, for 20 minutes, he was captivated with the digging and mixing and "hiding" game that we developed using the ice cube thingies. Then the rice hit the floor, literally. A few grains had already made it there of course, and while this was expected, grabbing handfuls and dumping them really wasn't. Why? I have no idea. I clearly wasn't thinking. Before things got too out of hand (and the dogs ate too many pieces of rainbow rice), I got it picked up and packed away.

A day or two later, HD started asking for his rainbow box again. He wanted to play! This was fine and I decided to try a spot away from dogs and baby that I thought would be more welcoming of The Mess that I knew was coming. What I knew was coming was rice-on-the-floor. Where I chose was our entryway. What ensued was this:

Notice the joy on his face? Well, I do now, but at the time, I stood there in a bit of shock; this is not what I had in mind when "allowing" mess making! & notice the railing to the right of the picture? That railing is to our front stairs where I am still - a monthish later - finding dyed pieces of rice in nooks and crannies. It wouldn't have been so bad, but then he flat out refused to help clean up (and thwarted my attempts to do so by grabbing the bin to dump it again), so Rainbow Rice, once I finally got some of it back in the box, went away. Not in the trash - just in the basement, where it sits waiting for a nice day when we can take it outside and Harrison can have a grand old time dumping it out for the last time. Note - I should probably do some research to make sure I'm not going to poison any birds, etc. that might try to clean up this pending mess for us!

So. Lessons learned. No dirt. No rice. Okay.

My third attempt came this morning with a Red box that I made for him of various items I picked up here, there, and around the house. Only now do I realize it didn't include anything Husker - the shame!

I thought all of my items were big enough to not be as annoying (to me) as the rice. I thought wrong! Harrison was instantly attracted to this new bin and was curious to find out what I had put in the two boxes (bells in one, beans in the other). He had a great time with the bells, sorting and shaking them. The beans were fun for scooping, and then, yes, dumping. I did my best to remain stoic and be at peace with how he was dismantling the box. Red crumple paper all removed from the box? Fine! Entire contents of bean box turned over on the floor? Great! Look at me - I'm in-control-of-my-extreme-dislike-of-messes-and-am-one-great-mom, I tried to tell myself. Seeing as my son seems to thrive on them, I really tried to let him just make a mess. But a type-A girl like me can only take so much. So much looks a bit like this:

When the objective went from playing and making a mess while doing so to just flat out get this stuff everywhere, I lost it. Well, I didn't lose it. I just started picking it up and putting it back in the box. I lost it when, again, he went after my minimal cleaning progress, dumping the bin again and again. *Sigh* So much for the fun morning activity!

Believe it or not, I got all of this cleaned up (because, you know, I love to clean, especially messes that shouldn't have been there). & this box is, like its rainbow predecessor, has been put away for good.

This time I really learned my lesson. I am not carefree enough for sensory bin mayhem; that crap can be saved for Daddy or preschool!

P.S. For any MOPS friends who are reading this and saw my little blurb in this month's Maternal Journal about the "great fun" and "excitement" of sensory bins, you can consider this a follow up article called, "Good Bins Gone Bad!" :)

Talk the Talk with HD

My mother is a talented lady. Included within her repertoire is an enviable ability to spell. Much to her chagrin, her children were not taught phonics in school and are both terrible spellers. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm not terrible (and I doubt my brother is either) - I am just creative. I make up my own versions of words and I use dictionary.com a LOT (hello - repertoire?! chagrin?).

All this being said, I am going to attempt to combine phonetic spelling skills that I don't actually have with creative spelling skills I actually do have in order to share with you some of Harrison's more interesting uses of the English language. I hope this is a list that keeps growing!

Kewl (Cool): This one comes from me. Whenever I hear HD say "cool" I hear a little reflection (hear a reflection? Wha???) of myself and I literally see the word spelled in the air as "K-E-W-L!" So apparently when I say "cool" I do so in a way that is really drawn out and drawlly (you know, said with a drawl). I like this one because he actually seems to add syllables to the word every time he says it which shows just how "keeeewwwwl" the item/event/situation is. 

Togedder/Beder (Together/Better): Really this is just a "D" sound in place of a "T" or "TH" sound, but I like these words because they make me think of Jack Johnson ("It's always beder when we're togedder!") and that alone is reason to smile. Also, one of our babysitters is named Heather, so as you can imagine, Harrison calls her Header. :)

Apple Coffee (Hot Apple Cider): Last fall, when we got our Keurig, I bought Ben some Hot Apple Cider KCups. Turns out, it is his son who loves them! Not sure how it happened or if it was actually HD or Grandma Deb (Ben's mom) who came up with the term, but Harrison now likes to enjoy some lovely Apple Coffee (mixed with water or ice cubes to cool it off & water it down a bit) in one of his sippy cups, usually on the weekend (or whenever Grandma visits!). Apparently he wanted to be like his mama who has to have real coffee every day just to keep up with him! But hey - if it makes him content without actually asking to have my coffee, I'll take it!

Honkey Donkey (Burro): My dad has two burros at his farm that stay with his sheep and Harrison is quite fond of checking on them when we visit. Somehow, last summer, he came up with the name Honkey Donkies for them. At first I thought it was cute just for the rhyme factor, but if you think about it, this is quite accurate because they essentially are donkeys and they do honk (bray, whatever)! 

Campfire (Kindle Fire): This one cracks me up big time. We just got a Kindle Fire a couple months ago and already Harrison has learned that it is a lot of fun, especially when it involves playing Angry Birds. But apparently "Kindle Fire" is a bit too much for him to say because two or three (or six) times a day I hear, "Mama, I play with Campfire? I play Angry Birds on the Campfire? Mama! I want to play on the Campfire!" He's even learned to ask me if the thing is charged because I use that as one of my reasons as to why he can't play on it (again). I find this one funny because of how much it confuses the outside world, until I translate. People seriously have no idea what he's asking for but once I explain, they are usually very amused. The whole image is also helped by the fact that the case on our Kindle is a lovely shade of burnt-ish orange...very campfire appropriate. Ben & I like this one so much that we have started using it as well, asking each other where the Campfire is and if it's charged. :)

Musekick (Music): I love, love, love this word. I'm a huge music fan and we listen to music all the time in our house. Harrison suddenly seems to know the words to all of the songs that we've spent the last two and a half years listening to with him and I love hearing him sing along at top speed. He actually gets a lot of the words right (more than I do sometimes!) and he also adds some interpretive dance moves and shoulder shimmies when he sings that might make him a great candidate for a front man of a band someday. Plus I really like the idea that music, something so inspirational to so many, can be conveyed as the muses getting a kick out of life.

Myze (Mine): For some time now, HD has impressed me with his use of pronouns. He gets his "he"s and "you"s and "I"s, etc. right almost all the time. What I find funny, though, is this made up pronoun  he has developed that appears to be a hybrid of "my" and "is" so I can only assume that he means "mine" by it. Well, that and the fact that he defiantly declares "MYZE!" when he grabs something away from Raegan or another child makes his meaning pretty clear. I love it because, again, it does make sense even if it isn't a "real" word. "My (fill-in-the-blank) is this! Give it to me!" I have a feeling "myze" may become a staple as his baby sister grows and really begins to get into his stuff!  

I'm sure there are more, but this is all that I can think of for the time being. I will try to record more as they come to me or as he comes up with them. Toddler language is both a mystery and a riot and I want to remember these little gems!

Anger Management

In many ways, this has been a trying week. Monday and Tuesday each brought us a kiddo up in the middle of the night for 2.5+ hours. You add that on top of the normal wakings (HD) and feedings (RL) and I think I got maybe 7 hours of sleep for the two nights combined. Wednesday, though, was the real kick in the pants because I ended up spending 2.5+ hours with both of the kiddos at various medical offices, only to find out that HD has bronchitis and RL has pneumonia. And here we had just gotten over the last round of crud and had a couple of healthy days...

I'm surprised my sleep deprived self didn't totally flip out on Wednesday. I've lost it over smaller things here lately, that's for sure. You see, much as I don't like it or want to admit it, I have been one mad mama lately. It's not that I don't have loads for which I am grateful. I do. I am. But it also seems that I'm teetering on the edge a lot these days between keeping my cool and watching it fly right out the window.

Now, owning up to something like this is hard. It is exposing and scary. But I'm willing to share my struggles with folks on the interwebs because I've learned that rarely are we alone in our struggles, especially when it comes to parenting. By putting words to our concerns we can relate to one another and lighten the load a bit. It is not just that misery loves company. There can be real relief in knowing "I'm not the only one!"; so, if by sharing my own "downs" I can tell someone else that they are not alone, then all the better.

As with most of my moods, I think my anger levels hinge on my sleep levels. When Raegan is being kind and only waking me once during the night, I am a much happier person during the day. When she has me up two or three times and Harrison is popping in our room two or three times (as he still sometimes does at night), I am a zombie during the day. Well, maybe I'm more of a monster. I get crabby and short-tempered and the whining and crying and short-lived attention spans of small children set my nerves shaking. They are small children - babies, even! They whine and cry and move from one activity to the next. I recognize that these are normal behaviors, but that doesn't seem to make them any easier to handle some (sleepy) days.

A friend of mine, who has had her own share of sleep struggles with her kiddos, describes this as a "dark place" that she goes where she no longer wants to be around normal people (i.e. those with children who sleep). Needless to say, I know this dark place a little too well lately. I have been so wrapped up in stress and so foggy in my head from sleep deprivation that I do struggle to be out in public sometimes. As in, I can't carry a conversation because I can't remember what the 'eff we were just talking about thirty seconds prior which makes me feel like a bit of a dolt and then I get paranoid that the person I'm talking to also thinks I'm a dolt and then I get sad that I'm such a paranoid dolt and then, well, you see - the cycle of bad moods spins on from there.

It's not just my social ego, though, that has taken a hit. It's how I feel as a mom. I have moments when I'm so frustrated and so achy tired that I just want to sit down in the middle of the floor and have my own tantrum. Kicking, screaming, crying - that's what I feel like doing. While I haven't officially gone that far (yet), these are the same moments that I tend to do more yelling and snapping at Harrison which only serves to make me feel worse later when the mommy-guilt settles on my heart. Just because he is uberactive and I am exhausted does not make him a bad kid; it just makes him a good kid who I am challenged by on fairly regular basis. No one ever said challenges were inherently bad; they can be amazing, or at least they can bring about amazing results, and that is what I hope to see for my son. Maybe we fight and push (metaphorically) and struggle with one another because we are two irons in the same fire, working to shape one another into something greater than we are as individuals....

Going back to the whole not flipping out on Wednesday thing...normally when someone tells you that your kids are sick, it is not cause for celebration. And trust me, I was not doing a happy dance in the doctor's office that afternoon! But it did give me a moment to pause, look back at the previous days and nights and go, "Ohhhh, so this is what was going on." I know my children need me every day, but there is something about having them both be sick again that just told my hot-tempered little brain that I needed to put on my big girl pants and get through it. So there. There is the silver lining in this week of tiredness and crap. I did it. I found a way to get past the anger (mostly) and be there for my kids. It wasn't pretty and I certainly haven't been a saint the last couple of days, but I did my best and honestly, that is enough.

To the Farm

Typically, when you hear that a dog has "gone to the farm," it is not a good thing. In our situation, though, this will not be a euphemism that we use with Harrison; it will be the truth. Our puppies are going to my parents' farm in South Dakota.

This has been a heartbreaking decision that has come after weeks of contemplating and wish-washing. I love Ozzie and Mara to pieces. Look at these faces. How could you not love them to pieces?

But the reality of our current situation is that they are not getting the love and attention that they need from us. I have two other small things (size-wise, that is) in my life that demand my eyes and hands and my heart day and night. The poor puppies get pushed to the end of the To Do list most days and that has made me feel sad and guilty to no end. Did you know Mommy Guilt applies to pets as well as kids? Well, I'm living proof that it does, and so we started talking about options.



My parents love dogs. We have always been a dog family, which is why I pushed Ben to get a dog (it was eventually his idea to get two!) from the very get-go of our marriage. After two years, he gave in and we brought home Mr. Ozzie and Ms. Mara. It was wonderful except for the fact that I was teaching in a town over an hour away and it was mid-winter and I was pregnant. As much as we have loved them from the very beginning, they have never received our full attention. Back then, though, there was still time for some of this:

After the first baby arrived, life got slightly hectic. But after a few months, we were able to settle into a routine and life was OK. Mostly the dogs were happy because at least they could have us in the evenings when we'd hang out in the family room and they'd be up on the couches with us. Now, with Baby No. 2, our evenings are once again as busy (or worse) than our days, and with school and track and everything else, it has all just become too much. Then there is the added factor that Harrison and the dogs have never been close. They run from his grabby toddler hands and I fear he isn't learning the best pet care skills from us when most of the attention we do direct at the dogs is less than positive. When you add to the that the excessive barking at anyone coming to our door or walking by our house, plus the getting out of the yard and roaming the neighborhood, plus the sudden extra messes in the house (regression?? attention seeking??), I am overwhelmed. I guess if I could get the Dog Whisperer to come to my house, things might not be ending like this, but I can't, so I'm looking for other avenues of help.

My parents are that avenue. It has been almost two years since they said goodbye to Joey, their own full-sized Australian Shepherd, who was part of our family for 16 years. There have been a number of reasons why they have waited to get a new dog, but now I believe it is because they were meant to take mine. As much as I hate to give O&M up, I can rest a little easier because I know they are going to place where they will be Loved. Plus, I selfishly know that this way I will still get to see the puppies when we get together with my family. I hope they can enjoy the space to run on the farm and the snuggles in the recliners that I know my parents will give them. Plus I know my dad. He will give them umpteen treats and carrots a day - how could they be too sad??? I just hope that what I don't see is too much hurt and confusion in their little brown eyes as to why their home isn't my home anymore; that will officially break my heart.

I don't know if any of us know how permanent this is. But it is what we are doing for now and I guess we'll see what happens. It is so very bittersweet because I'm relieved to give up some stress and deflated by the feeling of having failed to have been enough for them. Perhaps someday our little family will be more conducive for puppies. Until then, I can only hope that Ozzie and Mara know we're doing this so they get the love and attention they really deserve.