Me Oh My

There are two kinds of people in the world: cake people and pie people. Guess which one I am.

I'm a little surprised that I haven't tackled this particular 2KoP dichotomy before, but I'm grateful to Lisa Romeo's Summer Writing Prompt project for reminding me of it. A bit of research shows that both cakes and pies have long, venerable histories dating back to the ancient Egyptians, who are believed to be the world's first bakers.

Cake is fine. It has it's place. Much as I love it, a traditional wedding pie would be a hard to pull off, so my husband and I chose carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. (A mutual disdain for butter cream is one of the things that attracted us to each other.)

But pies (I'm talking fruit pies here) are a different sensation all together. Diet wise, cakes and pies weigh in about the same — both running at a not-exactly-healthy 250-300 calories a slice — but fruit pies somehow feel more virtuous. There's a complexity to homemade fruit pies — sweet and a salty, wet and dry, creamy and flaky, all at the same time — that makes each pie a singular experience.

Pies were originally called coffyns, then pyes and finally pies, and the delicious flaky pastry of our modern tarty desserts does not much resemble the typically inedible crusts of their early ancestors. Back then, the baked shells primarily served as cooking and storage vessels for savory meat dishes. I've had a few meat pies in my day, and a fair share of other crusted dishes, like quiche, but my true love is fruit pies.

Though the romance developed over time, it probably stems back to warm memories I have of baking pies as a child with my grandmother and cousin. My mother's mother was a less-than-stellar chef, coming from the school of cooking where you began making dinner first thing in the morning and boiled or baked the hell out of everything until it was served as barely distinguishable portions of mush and gristle.

That may be a bit harsh, but I will say the woman knew her way around a rolling pin. She made delicious pierogi (Polish dumplings), as well as all kinds of pies. When my cousin Cindy and I, who were the only girls on that side of the family, visited for a day or two, Grandma always made a little extra dough and would give us the trimmings to make tiny tarts. Wrapped in hand-embroidered aprons, we pretended to be grown-up women by pummeling and playing with that dough until it was more like rubbery silly putty than delicate pastry. My Grandma's pies, made from the more tender, earlier version of that self-same dough, were wonderful — delicately lattice woven and flaky on top, moist but not mushy on the bottom.

The first time I attempted to make a pie on my own, it was a complete disaster. Though most pastry dough is made from just a few ingredients (flour, some kind of fat, a little bit of liquid, and sometimes salt and/or sugar), it is a deceptively simple recipe, sensitive to atmospheric conditions and insensitive hands. As the Joy of Cooking explains: "No one recipe can precisely convey a sense for the way the dough should look and feel at all stages nor confer the fabled 'touch'. This comes only with practice."

By the time I was old enough and wise enough to try to codify my grandmother's recipes, it was a little too late. She had never written them down and though she tried to convey that "fabled touch", I just didn't get it. Years later, I let Joy of Cooking take me step-by-step to a decent, if not great pie crust, but it was a lonely learning experience and made me wish I had paid more attention to my grandmother while I had the chance.

About 15 years ago, I decided to forego even birthday cakes in favor of pie. Every year since, I have asked for a homemade peach or sour cherry birthday pie. This is a tricky request, since my late September birthday falls just beyond Midwest cherry and peach seasons.

One year, we planned a neighborhood progressive dinner that just happened to fall on my birthday. In a case of pure serendipity, our neighbor Al, who was in charge of dessert, had baked a peach and blueberry pie. I was sure my husband had tipped him off, but he assured me he had not (and he's not one to miss such a ripe opportunity for praise).

Then, one day in 2008, my friend Cindy Fey posted some juicy pictures of pies she had baked. She was a new friend at the time, and when I left a comment about my unabashed love of pie and dropped a few not-so-subtle hints, she commented back that she would bake me a birthday pie. Sure enough, in September of '09, she produced my first-ever baked-just-for-me homemade birthday peach pie. Never has a birthday cake tasted so wonderful as did this pie, dripping with the full goodness of summer and sweetness of friendship baked right in.

I tried to include a clip here of Andie MacDowell singing "The Pie Song" from the 1996 movie Michael, but no luck, so you'll have to settle for the transcribed lyrics, written by Roy Blount, Jr. Maybe this is the theme song for which I've been searching.

Pie, Pie
Me oh my
Nothing tastes sweet, wet, salty and dry
all at once, oh well, it's pie
Apple!
Pumpkin!
Minced an' Wet Bottom!
Come to your place everyday if you've got 'em
Pie
Me oh my
I love pie!

So what say you? Is it cake or pie that tickles your dessert fancy? Just click here to let us know.

P.S. Don't forget to check out the launch of The Chicago Moms. It's official as of today.

Photo credit: Peach & Blackberry pie by Tamara Manning via a Creative Commons license.

Best Birthday Ever — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

I often wonder what my kids will consider their best birthday ever. We've had some pretty good ones: the races at Dads Slot Cars, the serendipity of several Harry Potter films being released within days of my twins' birthday, the monster truck rally that my husband handled completely and I got to miss (hmmm, maybe that's my favorite).

The most creative party I ever threw was for my youngest son when he said he wanted a Chinese birthday. When I asked him what that was, he said: "I don't know. I'm sure you'll think of something." So, we had fortune cookies, ate a Chinese checkers cake (with gum balls instead of marbles), and gave everyone a set of homemade tangrams.

It was great — but not as great as my Best Birthday Ever.

Mine was the year I turned 11. My mom was recovering from major surgery, so she left the birthday celebration up to my dad (although, even as I write that, I realize that she probably planned the whole thing).

First, I got a groovy new outfit: a short, red split skirt that revealed navy blue hot pants underneath, topped with a crisp white poly/cotton pucker blouse with rows and rows of elastic. Before you block that image from your mind, be sure to add in a mouthful of braces. I thought I looked fabulous.

After presents, my stinky little brother stayed home with my mom, and my dad took me out for the evening. We drove to downtown Detroit — still vibrant and living high off low gas prices and big American cars. We parked and went to a big, beautiful movie theater where they were showing Love Story, that classic weeper with Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw. It was my first GP movie (in the days before PG or PG-13) and they even said the F-word. I think I fell in love with both Ryan and Ali, who looked beautiful even as she was dying. I was the only person in the theater who walked out with a big grin on my face. I felt so grown up.

After the movie, we went to a fancy restaurant with valet parking and everything. When we pulled up in the car, the valet opened my door and greeted me by name, wishing me a happy birthday. Everyone in the restaurant seemed to know my name. I don't remember the dinner, but I do remember the sparkler on the birthday cake and the whole room singing happy birthday to me.

During dinner, my dad told me that he wanted to show me a wonderful time — not just because it was my birthday, but because I was becoming a young lady. A dear friend of his had older daughters, and this friend told my dad that he always took his girls to nice places so that when they started dating, they would be impressed by the man, not by the trappings. My dad told me that story for the first time on my eleventh birthday and many times thereafter.

I hope when my children remember their Best Birthday Ever, it isn't just about the toys and the cake and the party. I hope somewhere deep down, they recognize the real gift we've tried to give them — that they are loved and cherished and worthy of being treated well. Thanks Dad.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman is busy planning birthday parties for her large family, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Photo credit: Fireworks – sparkler  by tim & annette

Birthday Parties Run Amok — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog post:

Birthday parties just aren't what they used to be. They are more — too much more.

When I was a kid, birthdays were fun. My mom made us whatever we wanted for dinner and on the closest weekend, family (cousins, aunts, grandparents) came for cake and ice cream. We only had birthday parties for what my mom deemed to be "special" birthdays: 5 — because you weren't a baby any more; 10 — because you were in double digits; and 13 — because you were finally a teenager. I also had a sleepover when I turned 16, but I was totally responsible for it.

I remember these parties vividly. For my fifth birthday, five little girls come to my house dressed up in their mama's hats and dresses and high heals. We played musical chairs in our dress-up clothes and had a tea party. My special gift was a Tammy doll cake. There was a real doll, and her dress was made of the cake and icing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My mom used Tammy because she thought that, at five, I was too young to play with a doll that had breasts (i.e., Barbie). It was a lovely, sweet party where the thrill of dressing up and putting on a little lipstick remains a tender memory for me more than 40 years later.

Nowadays, kids have birthday parties every year — often elaborate, expensive birthday parties. Parents are "encouraged" to invite everyone in the class so no one feels left out. While I can appreciate the underlying premise of this "fairness" policy, I found with twins that it got to be ridiculously cumbersome and expensive: one birthday, two children, two classes of 20+ kids. I refused to buy into it, but it did get hard to limit the invitation list.

This month, our local parenting magazine ran a special advertising section on party entertainment. (Full disclosure here: I was checking it out because my husband offers a party package through his pet store.) A full-page, tabloid-sized, four-color ad promoting a princess party caught my eye.

A local salon was offering princess party packages "just for preschool girls" (five and under). Ranging in price from $34.95 to $59.95 per girl, children come dressed in their own costumes and receive a "party up-do", shimmery make-up application, a 15-minute "runway dance", 20 minutes in a party room and a goodie bag with a tiara, glitter spray, lollipop and photo. The more expensive packages included a "mini-mani and mini-pedi" and a "strawberry paraffin hand treatment." Parents provide snacks and drinks.

Is it me, or is this just wrong? Maybe I'm a real Scrooge, but the cost alone gives me heart palpitations, particularly in this economy. For my daughter and five little friends, this party would have run $359.75 + treats and drinks.

While I get that a princess party is many a little girl's dream, the overt sexualization of very young girls that this party package implies makes my stomach more than a little queasy. I admit I don't understand the whole pageant community, and this seems like a direct extension of that mentality.

I don't mean to be a party pooper. There's nothing wrong with a little dress up and make believe. It just seems to me that this same idea could be accomplished in a much more age-appropriate manner, pretty inexpensively, with a little imagination and a reasonable tolerance for mess.

Besides, I didn't get my first pedicure until I was 40.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't busy party planning, she can be found blogging at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Golden Birthday — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

"They look like space aliens," said my 12-year-old stepson. And they did. Born at 24 and 3/7ths weeks gestation, my twins spent five months on the neonatal intensive care unit, with tubes and wires attached to every part of their little bodies. The ventilators huffed and the monitors blinked and bleated day and night. Nurses shaved their plum-sized heads in a quest to find viable IV sites, and their little toes glowed red from the pulse oximeter that measured their blood oxygen levels, just the way ET's finger glowed.

On their birth day, my son weighed in at 1 lb. 8.5 oz. and my daughter was 1 lb. 10 oz. They were not the earliest preemies ever born, nor the smallest — world records I'm happy we do not hold. Chances are they won't make it through the night, we were told. Chances are they will be blind. Chances are they will be deaf or profoundly hearing impaired. Chances are they will have cerebral palsy, severe learning disabilities, asthma, allergies and chronic lung problems. Chances are they will have to be hospitalized on a regular basis.

But chances were with us and this week we celebrate their "golden" or "star" birthday, when they turn 17 on the 17th, in perfect health as juniors in high school. It was a long haul. They spent nearly a year on oxygen and reached every milestone months (in some cases years) after their peers, but they did reach them. In honor of their birthday, I would like to share 17 of the many gifts they have given to me:

1. Good things come in small packages. These babies were literally gifts, their conception the result of a fertility treatment called gamete intrafallopian transfer (or GIFT).

2. Live in the moment. Until I was hospitalized 11 days before their birth, I wished my life away, always hungry for the next thing: growing up, going away to college, moving to a new city, getting married, buying a house, getting pregnant. Because we didn't know what the next minute would bring as we tried to stave off their premature birth, I saw for the first time the value of living in the now.

3. Be grateful for the simple things. Breathing is beautiful and not to be taken for granted. So is peeing, which I learned as we prayed for my baby boy to urinate as proof that his kidneys were not shutting down.

4. Never wake a sleeping baby (thanks mom). When my daughter came home on March 10th, nearly five months after she was born, she weighed four pounds. I was told she would act like a newborn, waking every two hours to eat. She didn't. That first night home, I watched her sleep. When she didn't wake at the two-hour mark, I put a mirror by her mouth to make sure she was still breathing, even though she was on oxygen and electronic monitors. I stared at her for two and a half more hours before she finally woke. She was tired; people had been poking and prodding her for months. From that night on, she slept six hours at a stretch, just like a real baby.

5. Everyone is different. These twins who shared so much were completely different right from the start. I learned that comparing them to each other or anyone else was pointless. I also learned to stop comparing myself to others.

6. We all learn at our own pace. The best piece of advice I got when they were born was to ditch my copy of the baby bible What to Expect the First Year. Everything that happened that year was unexpected. Everything that has happened since has been unexpected. As long as we are making progress, it's all good.

7. Boys and girls are different. It's not nurture, it's nature. I did not have the time or energy to give these boy/girl twins different toys or different kinds of attention. Girls mature faster, boys are noisier and more physical. Are these generalizations? Sure, but they're generally true.

8. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. My son has struggled mightily in many ways, but you would never know it to meet him. He has a short-term memory deficit, which makes learning by rote very difficult, as well as finding things, like your homework or your socks. On the other hand, each day is a brand new adventure, and he never suffers from emotional hangovers. We could all use a little more of that.

9. You are what you think you are. My son was diagnosed as small for gestational age for most of his life. Until he was 14 and had been on growth hormone for four years, he never even reached the lowest percentile on the growth charts. He was always the smallest kid in the class, but when you asked him how big he was compared to his classmates, he would say "Oh, about in the middle."

10. Trust yourself. We have had the benefit of hundreds of talented, dedicated professionals who have helped bring these children to where they are today. But I am their mom, and I know them better than anyone. To become an effective advocate for them, I had to learn to trust myself.

11. Ask for help. As the saying goes, it takes a village. A neighbor of mine took me to a Mothers of Multiples support group meeting even before the babies came home from the hospital. Those women saved my life. I also found therapists when we needed them, as well as a great pediatrician, not to mention all the times I leaned on my parents, other family and friends.

12. This too shall pass — and faster than you think. When they were little, it seemed that we'd be mired in diapers forever; we weren't. My son was finally potty trained at four and a half. It seemed like they would never talk; they did — at four. The problem with "this too shall pass" is that it applies to the sweet times, as well as the sour ones, so pay attention or you might miss something good.

13. Read aloud together. They are 17 and we still read together — not every night, but often enough. I have loved this time together (except the Go, Dog. Go! phase).

14. Never give up. These tiny, frail, vulnerable babies (fetuses, really) are the strongest people I have ever met. They survived more challenges in their first year of life than most of us do in a lifetime: ventilators, lung damage, jaundice, retinopathy of prematurity, heart surgery, and invasive infections, just to name a few. They fought hard to be here.

15. Don't listen to the naysayers. I can't tell you how many people told us it would have been better if they had never been born. I was terrified at first, sad that I had not carried them to term and that their lives were going to be harder (at least in the beginning) than it should have been. But we are so lucky they were born at a time and in a place where they had a real chance to survive and, given that chance, they have thrived.

16. Celebrate. Many loving, well-meaning people had no idea how to react when they were born. We received no gifts or cards or flowers until they came home. People were afraid they were going to die. My mother handled most of the phone calls, conveying to everyone that we were celebrating. Whether they lived 90 hours or 90 years, this was the only life they would ever have. We're still celebrating.

17. It goes by fast. These children were babies for a long time, much longer than most, and yet here we are, on the edge of 17, that dividing line between childhood and adulthood. How did this happen? I swear I was paying attention.

So, my babies, Happy Birthday! And thank you.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan is not sobbing over baby pictures, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

You've Come a Long Way, Babies!

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who come in the easy way, full term and healthy; and those who struggle with prematurity. 

In honor of Prematurity Awareness month and to celebrate my preemie twins' 17th birthday, I have a new post on Chicago Moms Blog. 

If you know anyone who currently has babies on the neonatal intensive care unit, you might also want to check out another Chicago Moms Blog post called NICU 101 for Families and Friends.

To all of you who cared for them and us during those long and stressful months and in the years since, happy Ike and Molly's birthday! We're still celebrating.

Leave your birthday wishes or tell your preemie story by clicking here.

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