Every once in a while, we get to babysit my nieces, and each time I am struck by how easily and naturally they fit into our family. I look around the supper table, at the three-year-old curled into the captain’s chair at the end announcing loudly, “Jennifer, I like pizza!” (because her mother taught her not to ask for food, so she only states her likes, never her wants), and at the baby on my son’s lap, and I think, If we had continued having children, this would be our family. It’s sweet.

What’s also sweet is that my husband gets all possessive about taking care of the baby. We all do, actually, but that my husband is counted in the “all” is rather exceptional. It’s exceptional for three reasons:

1. He doesn’t really like babies.
2. He’s not a baby person.
3. The only reason he held our babies was because I got tired of holding them.

So I’m exaggerating a little, yes. But it’s solidly true that he’s not a gushy-mushy, gotta-have-my-baby-fix sort of person. He’s generally perfectly content to completely ignore the little Bundles of Joy.

But last night after supper, I handed him the squawking, tired little creature, and said, “She needs to be changed. And give her a bath while you’re at it.”

“A bath? Are you serious?”

“Of course.”

Off he went to the bathroom mumbling things like, “I don’t remember how to do this anymore.” Over the running bath water, I could hear him talking to the baby. The soothing “Shh, it’s okay” talk soon turned to, “Okay, okay! Enough already! I’m hurrying as fast as I can!” And then he hollered to me, “Hey! What am I supposed to use for soap?”

“Use my face cleanser. It’ll be gentle enough.”

When he re-entered the room a few minutes later, towel-wrapped babe tucked under his arm, the kids swarmed him like he was the pied piper, clamoring for a turn to hold her.

“Are you kidding?” he said, stuffing her waving arms into the sleeper. “I just gave her a bath. I’m not giving her up now. It’s my turn to hold her.”

And so he did.

This same time, years previous: a touchy subject (to spank or not to spank),

Hamlet is dead. He was first killed in the reading of the play, and then a few minutes later he again croaked, “I am dead, Horatio,” but that time in the movie.

The kids’ reactions were hilarious. My daughter sat rigidly beside me while I read the closing scenes, her eyes round with incredulousness as she struggled to decipher the meaning of the words. And with each new death, my son shouted with riotous laughter at the outrageous turn of events. They both thought the closing scene, all the dead bodies littering the floor, was comical rather than tragical, which then made me launch into Polonius’s tragical-comical-historical-pastoral speech.

It tickles me to no end that my kids are old enough for Big Literature, the stuff that excites and challenges me. My guess is that they understand only a very small fraction of the play. They get the plot, yes, but the deeper meaning? No way. Heck, even I don’t get all of it. Even the little ones, despite being banned from much of the reading and watching (due to their disruptive behavior more than anything) managed to glean bits and pieces—out of the blue one day, my younger daughter informed me that Hamlet’s father’s name was Hamlet, too.

It wasn’t like they were all chipper-happy to sit still and listen to me plow through the play. If I give that impression, than I mislead you. My daughter fussed and bulked a fair bit, and my son’s mind wandered entirely too much, but I forged ahead, stumbling over the unfamiliar phrases and providing muddled (and sometimes completely wrong) explanations. It helped that we followed up our reading sessions with the movie version (skipping the incest scene).

Last night before heading upstairs to bed, the whole family gathered around the kitchen table to listen as the three of us flipped through the book and discussed our favorite parts. My daughter liked the part where Ophelia went crazy. My son and I both liked the “words, words, words” part. The ending sword fight was tops, too, of course. All four children raced to list off the names of all the people who died in the play, and the older kids wished they could’ve seen the part where Polonius died (that dang incest scene). We read bits of different speeches and then tried to memorize part of the To Be Or Not To Be speech—it’s a lot harder than it looks!

This fall, Hamlet is playing at the Blackfriar’s theater. I’ve heard it’s an incredible production. If we get there, and I hope we do, then we’ll have consumed Hamlet three ways in one short season.

This same time, years previous: my new baby, pear butterscotch pie

On Saturday, we all went to the annual Mennonite Relief Sale. It’s a big-time event, with a huge auction, lots of baked goods, ethnic food, fun stuff for kids, and so on, with all proceeds going towards Mennonite Central Committee, our church’s relief organization.

In other words, the more donuts you buy, the more you help the poor.

It seems kind of screwy to me, this type of do-gooderism. All the clapping and cheering when a quilt bid shoots up over the thousand dollar mark. The sugar highs, the bloated stomachs, the cheap toys that will soon find their way to a landfill. Is this really an effective way to alleviate poverty?

Yes, yes, it’s about community, I know. It’s about a bunch of people rallying for a common cause. It’s festive, kind of like a huge family reunion, and I haven’t missed the weekend for years.

It’s tons of fun, but still, it makes me feel funny.

Anyway, it was while I was standing outside the hamburger and hotdog stand waiting for my son to finish up his shift that I had an important conversation with my friend. It was about popcorn. (I think it’s safe to say that everything in my life revolves around food, yes?)

We were discussing kettle corn (which was being sold there, but of course), and she said her family had recently started making popcorn with maple sugar. “I pop the corn in coconut oil, and we add a couple spoonfuls of maple sugar and some cinnamon to the kernels. Then when it’s done, we add butter and salt, too.”

“Cinnamon?” I asked, not really paying attention. I wasn’t trying to be rude. It’s just that we were surrounded by hundreds of fellow Mennonite, and I was a little distracted.

“Oh yes, it gives it a nice flavor.”

“Mm. Maple and cinnamon, it does sound good…..” My eyes and mind were wandering again. I forced them to focus. “But don’t you have trouble with it burning?”

“No, we just shake and stir the whole time. The popcorn starts to stick together because of the sugar, so you have to get it out of the pan as soon as it’s done.”

“Mmm… Hey, who’s that woman over there?” I said, because I really can’t carry on a conversation and people watch at the same time. “Does she look familiar to you?”

By bedtime that night, the too-many-donuts-and-potato chips feeling had faded, but the passing popcorn conversation lingered. And as it lingered, it intensified, so that by the following night, after I had made a triple batch of sweet and spicy popcorn and a triple batch of regular butter popcorn (that’s three cups of kernels, eek), I grabbed the bag of homemade maple sugar out of the freezer and set the popper back on the burner for one more batch of popcorn.

And, wow! Holy kerpopping corn! Not only did my husband tell me he liked it, he made eye contact with me while saying so. And folks, when I get the eye contact, it means something is seriously good.

I made the popcorn again on Monday because we were having a rough day and because I wanted to do a post about it (the popcorn, not the day) and because I didn’t eat enough for lunch and supper wasn’t coming around fast enough (probably because I was making popcorn) and because I really, really wanted to taste that maple-y sweet saltiness again.

The melted maple sugar does this fantastic thing where it coats the kernels with a crust so faint and delicate that it disappears with the first bite. And the maple-cinnamon flavor is profoundly delicious but so mild that it makes you want to cram handfuls of the stuff into your mouth on the off chance you might capture more of its ethereal sweetness. But no matter how much you cram, the flavor remains aloof, more an essence than a solid taste. Such a tease!

Maple Sugar and Cinnamon Popcorn
As half-heard from my friend Kris

This is the first (and second) time I’ve ever made kettle corn successfully and it’s all because of my whirley-pop. I’m in love with my whirley-pop and I’m even more in love with it now that I know it can turn out such awesome popcorn.

½ cup popcorn kernels
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil
3-4 tablespoons maple sugar
1/3 – ½ teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 tablespoons butter, melted
coarse salt

Put the popper on medium-high heat and add the coconut oil. When the oil is good and hot, dump in the popcorn kernels, maple sugar, and cinnamon. Stir without ceasing until the popping has stopped. Immediately dump the popcorn into a large bowl and toss with melted butter and salt.

This same time, years previous: rustic cornmeal soup with beet greens, donuts, sweet rolls