Will's Pumpkin Pie recipe

A few weeks ago, Will wanted to make pumpkin pie ... out of one of those tiny decorative pumpkins.

"I'm not sure I know how to do that," I said.

Fortunately, Will knew just how to do it.

"First you cut it open, then you add a little salt, and you add a little pepper, a little flour and some CIMM-O-NEN."

"Some what?" I said.

"Cimm-o-nen."

"Oh, cinnamon."

"Yup. Then you put it in the oven and cook it and then you eat it."

So, he made the pie, just like he said ...



Scott cut open the pumpkin and Will removed "the guts."











Then Will added his ingredients ... salt and pepper ....












flour ...











cinnamon ...










he stirred it all up ...















and as you can see, it came out amazingly well.








We were super-excited to have Erin and Tyler visiting that day and they got to try the first few pieces. Erin even asked Will for his recipe, which he was happy to share.

I'm not so sure that Sara Lee would be so forthcoming.

An apple a day

Will has always made a lot of art projects at his daycare, but now that he's in 4K, well ... we may need to get a bigger fridge and more magnets.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Will made his "Apple Pattern Crown." There are four apples on the crown in the "red-green-red-green" pattern and it is, as he says, "awesome."

This morning, Will was wearing the crown around the house and left it on the living room floor, a mere two feet or so from Charlie.

Have we mentioned that Charlie is teething?

Well, it didn't take long for that little guy to scoot over and start chewing on that crown. By the time I noticed, it was covered in drool and ripped to shreds.

I looked behind me and there Will stood, looking devastated, tears starting to well up.

He looked so sad, I just gave him a half-hearted speech about not leaving stuff around where Charlie can get to it.

"I know, Mommy," he said, starting to sob full force. "But what am I going to do now? I don't have a crown! What will I do?"

The drama threw me for a loop, but we soon figured out that we can make a new one after school.

Here's the thing ... after more than 5 months of constantly reminding Will to "be gentle" and "not wake up the baby" and "stop squeezing his face" ... I was more than a little surprised: Who knew that Charlie would make Will cry first?

Selective hearing

The other day we were in church, and our priest was giving a homily about God's will. As part of it, he was emphasizing the need to go to church, and describing the excuses people use to rationalize not attending church. To paraphrase, he said something like this:

"They'll say 'Church is boring, it's too long, I don't get anything out of it,'" he said. "No! It is your obligation as a Catholic to go to church!"

Will, who we assumed was lost in the book he was reading, perks up and looks at me, Jana, and my dad.

"He said church is boring!" Will repeated, grinning from ear to ear, as if to say "See?!? Even the guy in the robe agrees with me!"

The old folks in front of us got quite a kick out of it. I can see Will treating this as powerful evidence in what promises to be about a 14-year battle for the Tappa family's Sunday morning agenda.

It's apple time

Recently Will's four-year-old kindergarten class took a trip to a local apple orchard to learn more about how apples grow, how to make apple cider, and how to avoid stepping in cow droppings. Even on an unseasonably cold morning everyone had fun. Captions for the photos below:

-Will was one of the first to climb the ladder and pick an apple. Unfortunately he didn't see the bug bites on it, which bummed him out.

-At the end the kids got to grind up the apples and prepare them to become apple cider.

-The kids really enjoyed playing with Farmer Honken's calf.

-Farmer Honken warned that there was a haunted house on his property. Will wasn't buying it, as much as I tried to sell it. However, Will did think that this was where Mr. Honken actually lived, leading to a barrage of cringe-inducing "My house is bigger than Mr. Honken's house" proclamations from the boy.

-Will and his buddy Logan palled around all morning.

License to drive

The other day Will told me he wanted to ride his bike to day care, which is five miles of highway driving away. I told him it would take too long, so he should just drive. He did surprisingly well for his first time behind the wheel.

You want cereal with that milk?

Jana has started to try giving Charlie solid foods. He seems to be ready, but the pictures below of one of Jana's attempts show he's not exactly taking to it like kids take to ice cream.

Animal caller

The other night Will and I were playing outside, and he put together some PVC pipe to make an "animal caller." It didn't really work, but maybe that's because of all the restrictions Will put on it: "You can't call lions or sharks or spiders or snakes ..."

A little bathroom humor

Last night, I was washing bottles and could hear Will "working something out" in the bathroom. After a few minutes, he yells, "Mommy? Can you come here please?"

I peeked inside and he said, "Can you please bring me a book?"

Stifling a smile, I figured, a boy's got to do what a boy's got to do.

I brought him the first book I found in the living room and started walking away when he said, "Actually, can you bring me one of my new Star Wars books?"

As I started walking away to get a Star Wars book when he yelled to me again, "Mommy? You'd better bring both of them ..."

It may be time to up the fiber.

If you're thinking of having kids ...

Our friend Angela forwarded me an e-mail titled, "Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 10-Step Program First." The entire program had Scott and I rolling on the floor, but our favorite was Step 2, which I just had to share ... Enjoy!

Lesson 2
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.(Eat cold food with one hand for dinner.)
2. At 10 p.m., put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 a.m.
4. Set the alarm for 3 a.m.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 a.m. and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45 a.m.
7. Get up at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4 a.m.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Belly rumblings

I was helping Will brush his teeth when my stomach let out a particularly loud grumble.

"Mommy?" Will said, "Does this mean you're growing another baby in there?"

"No," I said, "That just means Mommy had pizza for dinner and my belly isn't sure it likes it."

"Why?" I asked. "Do you think we should have another baby?"

"No. Definitely not," he said. "Not yet."

A pause and then ...

"Mommy? If we have another baby, I'm going to need three pillows on my bed. One for me, one for Charlie and one for the new baby."

"OK, we can do that."

"Mommy? My new name is "Luke Skywalker" and Daddy's new name is "Obi-Wan-Kinobe" and you're "Princess Leia" and Charlie is "Rex" so ... if we have another baby we can call it "Padawan."

Uncle Andy will be so proud ...

The Good ... The Bad

The Good News: Charlie rolled over from his back to his tummy (he'd previously just gone from tummy to back).

The Bad News: It was at 4:06 a.m. after an extended diaper change in which he tried to wash his own hair in the way only baby boys can ...

Books en Espanol

Yesterday Will brought home a pair of books from the library, as he typically does on days he attends kindergarten. We enjoy reading them to him.

However, we're going to have some trouble with the two he brought home this time:

"La gallinita roja."

and

"Jorge el Curioso."

For those of you out there who took German, French, or ahem, Latin in high school, that's "The Little Red Hen" and "Curious George." From what I can tell, in this volume of the George classics the monkey prank phone calls 911, gets thrown in jail, mauls a security guard and escapes, and rides some helium balloons to the zoo. Good times are had by all, except the security guard.

Both books we would enjoy sharing ... en Ingles! Our question was not so much why Will picked them out -- he can't possibly know written English from written Spanish yet -- but why the librarian didn't say something. Oh well, maybe we'll tackle them en Espanol -- I'm curioso to see how Will responds.