Study of Wondie, gorgeous jam

Since his birthday, Oliver's love for Wonder Woman has not waned in the slightest. While in NC last month, I bought him a Wonder Woman coloring book, and you'd have thought I'd given him the greatest gift in the world. Perhaps it was! Since camp began, Ol has drawn at least one picture of "Wondie" every day, and because he seems slightly bashful about his love for her -despite my entreaties that he be proud; she is cool- he has his counselors (or maybe he does this by now) wrap each picture up like a scroll and tape it shut with painter's tape so the paper doesn't get nicked or torn. At pick-up, he proudly though somewhat shyly presents me with his newest work(s), and I am excited anew because these are truly wonderful and darling. Sometimes Wondie lacks arms, and in one -gasp- she wasn't wearing her star-spangled undies, but Ol never forgets her tiara or golden lasso. Sometimes Wondie is alone on the page, at other times, she's amidst words or some other scene (see: hand-crabs). I treasure these pieces and had to share.

It's another gray day here but blessedly both kiddos are at camp (especially blessed because I slept in the basement with Jack last night and was kicked more than once, coughed on and awakened by his loud shout-outs to Oliver and other subjects playing prominently in his dreams), so I've enjoyed quietude and coffee. I'm about to get back to work on my newest puzzle but did make a glorious batch of peach-apricot-almond jam earlier. Just four half-pints and I spooned the rest over some fresh yogurt for a wow breakfast.

It's actually that color- incredible, yes?

Lastly, an enormous thanks to all who wrote in response to yesterday's post. I'm so grateful that you read Em-i-lis and let me know when things resonate with you!

One of those days

Readers, I am having one of those days.

One of those days where I feel flat as matzoh (I know that's not the expression, but really, pancakes fluff in a way matzoh does not; hello leavening agents!). One of those days where I wonder if what I'm doing is what I should be doing and/or if it matters in the slightest. One of those days in which "is this what it's all about?" flutters through my mind frequently with a "don't answer that!" following close on its heels.

With about a 90% chance of accuracy, I can probably blame said malaise on some shitty hormones in concert with the 4-day holiday being good but long. Too many early wake-ups/unread everythings/half-finished conversations/too-quickly done whatevers. And, it didn't end today like it was supposed to.  

Jack stayed home from camp today, sick with a croupy cough, though his fever has stayed at bay since Friday night. I cooked dinner for the Grands while he took one hour to write/draw a thank you note (it is spectacular but that pace leaves a tad to be desired in the efficiency department, yes?). A little Harry Potter here, some of a new puzzle there, to the Grands', to pick up Ol...I am hoping for a return to regularity tomorrow, but I kinda suspect it'll be Camp Mommy again.

All day I was hounded by a sense of insufficiency. That's not totally right, but it gets at part of what I felt. Here's what I know: I cannot just be Mom; I must, however (because I want to), be a stay-at-home mom. So, how to negotiate this?! And yes, I am fully aware that this is a luxurious, 1%er type of dilemma, but you know what? It's real, and hard, and painful, regardless of who is struggling with it.

I want very much to be the primary person raising my children, but I also want to honor and pursue and stay connected to the woman I have become and now am. I want to model for my children that mothers are multidimensional beings with lives and interests that both evolve from and are completely unrelated to them. Plus, we have friends and spouses and jobs and such. But I digress.

The point is, it's really fucking hard to balance it all and sometimes, I feel like I'm the one getting the short end of the stick despite my very best efforts pretty much all.the.time.

I've written about this dilemma so many times before yet I've never arrived at an answer that is either sufficient or reasonable, not least both. This evening, my constellation of disgruntled queries found focus in a questioning of Em-i-lis. Now approaching its 2½-year anniversary, I love writing it each and every day but it what does it mean, and to whom, and why? Is it a worthy undertaking if the audience is relatively small?

To me it is I think because I receive kind notes of "thanks" and "yes" and "I love what you write" on a regularly regular basis. But I'm not The Pioneer Woman or Smitten Kitchen or any of those other behemoths and I don't know if I could be or would want it.

~~~~ Pause... ~~~~

At precisely that point, Jack started wailing from his room, refused medicine, asked for tea and then had some cockamamie idea about making cookies. I acquiesced, asked him to read me the recipe (as a result we now have a teaspoon more of salt than called for but so be it), and got those puppies in the oven. He doesn't want them anymore.

~~~~

So now I'm back, cookies all over, knowing that tomorrow will be another Camp Mommy, somewhat dreading the revisit to the pediatricians' office, somewhat inordinately thankful it can be me there with J. And I'm again left hanging in the balance between two often-competing identities of import.

Trimming pie

Although my Nanny taught me to cook many things and I spent innumerable happy days with her in the kitchen, I don't recall ever watching her make a pie. This is profoundly strange to me because a pie-maker she very definitely was. My blackberry pie recipe is hers (my sister and I used to pick the blackberries from her yard), as is my lemon meringue fluff pie recipe, though that might have come through Aunt Da, Nanny's older-by-16-years sister, originally. Aunt Da is the source of my French Silk pie and was a terrific cook in her own right. At Nanny's, the pies always seemed already-made: when we arrived for lunch, they were chilling in the fridge; when she came our way or we were all to meet at Aunt Da's, the pies had long been wrapped gently in Saran. For lemon meringue pies, Nanny used toothpicks to tent the plastic wrap so as not to mar the peaks of meringue. Those hills of whipped egg whites, turned slight golden in the low oven in which they cooked, looked like snowy mounts; sometimes they wept small amber tears which escaped their zeniths but never completely descended the slopes.

I remember once riding from Nanny's house to Aunt Da's for a family lunch, probably on a Sunday. Mom must have been driving, and we must have picked Nanny up because we were all snug in Mom's gray Cutlass. Nanny gingerly placed the lemon pie on the floor of the backseat and begged me to watch my dangling feet. At some point, I don't remember when or even how, my heel must have sunk because when we arrived at Aunt Da's, one of the meringue peaks had been smashed by a crater, a rounded imprint left in the top, like a hand in wet cement. I felt terribly. Looking back, I wonder why Nanny didn't just hold the pie on her lap.

The person I most remember making pies is my mom. She's not a big sweets person, but pies are a different story, and she is an enormous fan of most. 2 cups of flour, sifted, then whisked with a teaspoon and a half of salt. Make a well and into it pour 1/4 cup of milk and a 1/2 cup of canola oil. Using a fork, mix everything until the dough comes together, shape with your hands into a ball and place that onto a sheet of waxed paper. Press it into a disk and cover that with a second sheet of waxed paper. Roll it out with a pin to your desired thickness, carefully peel off the top sheet of paper, and invert the crust over a pie plate, pressing it into the bottom and up the sides. Carefully remove the base sheet of waxed paper.

Mom had this ancient sifter, surely a wedding gift as is the rolling pin she always used and still does. That sifter creaked and groaned, and at times I considered that the slight shower of rust that came through with the flour might not be beneficial. A few years ago, I sent her a shiny new one and with no ceremony, the old tool was laid to rest. It was time. Once she'd got the crust in the pie dish, she would hold it propped atop the fingers of her right hand -as if she had a ball in her palm, fingers pointing upward- and with her left hand (she's a lefty) trim the excess crust by running a paring knife around the perimeter of the plate's edge. I loved to watch the scraps fall back to the waxed paper. If the pie was an open-faced sort, like pumpkin or coconut, those scraps would become pie crackers which were one of my favorite treats of childhood and are no more than pie dough rolled out, cut into rectangles and baked. Perfection.

This past Wednesday, as I made the blackberry and cherry pies for the 4th, I thought of Mom and Nanny as I trimmed the crust and baked pie crackers for Oliver who loves them like I did. I cut a star from another bit of extra crust to put atop Jack's birthday pie, as he was my first little beam of bright offspring light. I thought of how many pies Mom and Nanny made for all of us, how many I've already made for my sweet brood and how many more will come.