The Sprog Blog: March 2009

Whoopie PIES, people, PIES. Minds out of the gutter, this is a family blog.

Those of you not intimately familiar with the psychotic weirdness of the School of Drama's PhD seminar process will probably not understand how my friend Lisa could become slightly obsessed with a whoopie pie receipe from the NYT while writing two end-of-quarter seminar papers. But for those of you who found yourselves ordering retro jerseys from Ebay at 3 am, counting turkey sandwiches, trading the lyrics to "Eye of the Tiger" or just generally screwing around on the internet rather than working on your papers, this makes sense.
Lisa is on spring break. She called last week with "Hey! You want to make whoopie pies?"
As per usual, my reply was "Sure. What's a whoopie pie?" I have a strange tendency to agree and then ask questions. But I usually feel good about agreeing to Lisa's plans because frequently they involve tasty food and sometimes even tasty dessert. Yesterday she came over, amused Sam, and we had lunch then made the infamous Whoopie Pies of Yore.

Evidently cupcakes WERE all the rage, but now it's all about the Whoopie Pie. As Lisa pointed out, "All you ever saw the Sex in the City girls do was buy the cupcakes, they didn't eat them. I don't think they're gonna be eating whoopie pies." Well, we're PhD in the City Women, and we ate the whoopie pies.

The Pies of the Whoopie:

Big, soft, not-too-sweet chocolate cookies the size of my kid's head.

The Whoopie of the Pies:

Vanilla Buttercream frosting. This is the real stuff people-- bain marie's were used, tempretures taken, and there is a cup of butter involved.

Frosting the pies.

I think the fruit is a nice touch-- makes it look like Charlie and I aren't slovenly eaters of only Whoopie Pies.

This is Lisa. She's on spring break. She is happy.

We had to get Lisa's hands in there for scale. These things are massive. Both of us got a little ill after eating one. Charlie had one for dinner. But they are really tasty. I think the key is, while voluminous, they aren't sugary sweet.

I know you people don't come here for the cooking, so on with the kid show... Grandad Marsh came up on one of his quick trips. We had a lovely time, as usual. Here, Sam is doing his latest trick of repeatedly slamming his hand on the cow button on his E.C.C. to get it to play "Old Macdonald" while Grandad accompanies on Sam's banjo.

Happy Baby and Grandad

Filthy, filthy boy

Yeah, eating is all about pouring food out of the bowl these days. He hates the chair enough that if I don't let him noodle with the bowl, he'll pitch a fit. But the way he peers into it and then looks up at me is hilarious.

No meal is complete without one's Cat Minion. Note how Monk stays away from the child while it is gooey.

This is one of his favorite objects right now. No, not the complex learning toy in his lap. It's the purple fish. Comes out of a puzzle book and he is near obsessed with chewing on it. What he usually does is stick it tail first into his mouth-- so he can hang on to it with his gums while using his hands to do other things.

Botecelli Sam

Finally, the jumper is enormously popular these days. Lisa and I stood in the hall watching him in it for a good 10-15 minutes yesterday. It's like Baby TV. Plus it WEARS HIM OUT. Great right before a nap.

And for a treat...a little show.

And yet today was clear and beautiful. Colder than all get out, but pretty. We took a walk. Charlie was in CA last week for a quick trip. While single parenting I got a little camera frisky. I made a number of small videos, but they take so long to upload, I'm going to dole them out. But none right now. I have to remember to start one uploading when I finish my desk sessions in the morning. Got to do that...

Anyhow, I love pictures of kids in the bath. I think Charlie gets embarassed for Sam, but how else am I going to torture him when he is older?

There is an ever so faint strawberry blond mohawk on Sam's head above. He's got more hair, but not much.

Look at the arm folds. The ROLLS! He is all health.

A rare moment of happiness in the high chair-- although he does tolerate it more and more these days.

Well my heavens, look at what he can do.

I think something just clicked in his head this past week and suddenly sitting up isn't such a trial. He can do it without the pillow, but does fall down to the side rather sharply. Yes, we have not coated the fireplace edges in foam. Remember people, he still doesn't like to be on his stomach and is nowehere near rolling or crawling yet.