difficult parenting moments

Yesterday was one of those days in life you wish you could erase. It was where I had more than one moment of questionable parenting decisions where I mumbled to myself, “I suck at this.” Don’t pity me, we all have these feelings I am sure. Right?

And to ice the cake of many layers at this point, the bread I chose to make had to rise over night. With a sigh, I popped the dough in the refrigerator and flipped the pages of my borrowed book to pick again. My miserable self knew that I indeed, MUST have bread!

I settled on an amazing recipe for a dutch baby. Essentially it is a giant popover with an apple filling. What is not to love? It teeters on the edge of not bread-dom but if you taste it you will realize you could care less. Bread, dessert, pastry, whatever you would like to call it, it is delicious.

I would like to include that this is an easy recipe and that it is fool-proof. But giving the circumstances of my day and the state of my brain functioning, it turned out to be quite a frustrating little creation. But, I assure you, if you can follow directions at all you will succeed. Keep in mind the batter will be lumpy and that the recipe includes MILK. So, by all means don’t try to mix it in after its been in the oven for a few minutes…. it just doesn’t work that way.

Dutch Baby

Adapted from The Bread Bible

Mix 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup flour, and a bit of salt with 2 tablespoons melted butter. The batter will be pea sized balls of dough at this point. Mix in 2 eggs and two egg whites with a cup of milk and put them all together. Heat up an 11 inch cast iron skillet in a 425 degree oven for 3 minutes with 2 tbs. of butter coating the whole thing. Take it out and quickly pour the batter in. Cook for 15 minutes, then lower the temp to 350 for an additional 30. In the last 10 minutes of cooking poke a few holes in the monstrously rising beast to cook the center a bit.

While she is a baking away, saute up 2 pounds of apples in some butter, cinnomon and nutmeg until just tender.

Take the baby out, scoop it onto a platter, and top it with apples. Whip up some cream too, if you have some.

So, I turned the lights out on such a discouraging day. I have no plan on how to improve my mama status at this juncture. But hopefully some dutch baby helped.

It was one of those mornings. Everything started off just fine. Rowan even woke at the lazy bone hour of 6:45 (latest he has pretty much ever slept). I had waffles in the freezer from yesterday making for a simple breakfast. I was able to pack a picnic lunch without a hitch. We headed off to start our day.

So is life, but it is true, things did not end in quite such a graceful manner.

With a moody two-year old who made several dashes away from mama hysterical laughter trailing behind him, an insatiable ten month old who honestly is hungry every singe minute of the day, and an over zealous mama with about 50 pounds or so of library books in her tote, we were quite the trio. Sigh. Then the rain came. Those big stormy clouds put a damper on our lunch plans to say the least. The south doesn’t just have tiny rain storms either. Around here it comes down in buckets. The kind of rain where you have to pull over. Where “mommymommymommymommy” and “wahhhhhhhhhhhh” are more than your nerves can handle. To ice the cake, when I pulled into my driveway my little man had an accident in his car seat. Car seats are not made to be easily washed I assure you. I tugged. I yanked. I even pleaded with it. I made it my personal mission to get that thing apart. I wrestled it with all the strength I possess and guess what? It won. I called that poor soul who is my husband and screeched at him (because of course it is all his fault isn’t it). And then, while this isn’t something I am proud to admit, but it is the ugly truth; I chucked that contraption half way across my yard. And let me tell you; it felt so incredibly good.

Days like these I often dwell and pout. Not today though. Today I feel like I need to sit, breath and focus not on all these little problems, but instead the sweetness that really is my boys.

Some things I never ever want to forget as long as I live:

…what a “middle-sized kiss” from Miles feels like

…When that same boy announced at supper last night, “Wow I can’t believe what a gorgeous salad this is!”

…The one-legged crawl that looks so silly that both my boys somehow used to get around

…Th sounds of my non-napping children laughing together from their respecitve beds for the first time

…When my sweet little boy says (about a million times a day), “My love you anymore the whole world”. Translation -more than anything in the whole world-

…the reassuring voice of my gentle husband at my most vulnarable times

…a game of apple catch at the most serene beach I have ever had the honor to visit

…how impossibly soft a baby’s skin feels against my cheeks