Let the dog in!

Oh, the horror. She was helping, as usual, standing on a wicker chair in the kitchen while leaning against the counter and grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. We were making pumpkin pie. The crust was ready and waiting, handmade with real butter. The pumpkin had been lovingly chosen at our local pumpkin patch (cheap!) and roasted at home, flesh scraped out and even mashed thru a sieve to get rid of the stringy parts. A nice, bright orange, enough for two pies. One was made weeks earlier, a practice run, while this batch waited in the freezer for Thanksgiving to come. Now, here we were with Kid focused on stirring. I added in all the spices, lots of them, and she stirred/splashed the pumpkin custard mixture up to and over the edges of the bowl. Nice, bright orange, she said beaming. One minute, maybe two, that was all it took. I left to help my dad use my laptop to access something important while he was visiting. What espn scores? Golf channel scheduling? When I came back, Kid informed me that she made the mixture even more orange. Oh, you did? What? You did what? No, really, Kid, what did you do???? She proudly stirred an orange watery mixture and pointed to her cup of water. That, she said. What that?? Water? Did you put water in the bowl? Uh-huh, I made it more orangey with that. RRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! Two freaking minutes and she ruined my pie. I could not hear for the grinding of my teeth echoing in my head. I had no idea how much water she put in, a splash, a cup. I did not have more fresh pumpkin. With my blood pressure pounding in my head, I decided to act as if nothing happened. This, after I lectured her, up in her face, about how we follow a recipe when we are cooking and this is not playing with play dough, and don’t you ever add stuff without Mommy or Daddy being here, too. So much effort so gleefully tossed aside for the sake of more fun stirring. That is living in the moment. Maybe someday I will learn some of that. For now, I am just trying to learn some deep breathing so Kid’s head is not popped off when I squeeze her.

Follow me on Twitter at Let the dog in! Please be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed, too!