Butter Lovers

I know, I already did one post here today. But this is completely off topic from that one and something I just thought would give a little levity to everyone this morning.

I sure do hope people don't get upset or bored with my little stories of what my little princess - Miss Maya - has done cause I don't want to lose readers over that. But then, I risk getting conservative Republicans a bit peeved at times I suppose with posting the Bushisms of the day and I haven't stopped doing that. So guess what, here's a little story of something Miss Maya did yesterday, Thursday (March 15th).

Occasionally, I get the urge to bake bread. Sometimes I do this fairly frequently and then there may be a couple months that pass before I decide gee, some fresh homemade Swedish Limpa Rye bread sure would taste good and I drag out the ingredients and mix up a big batch that yields four nice loaves of this particular bread.

My kids don't mind at all when I get in that mood as they - like me - love fresh homemade bread. I am especially partial to cutting off a slice or two immediately after taking it out of the oven, slathering a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of butter on it and relishing the comfort that food brings me. And also, when I say "butter" here I am referring to the real thing - honest to goodness, for real BUTTER, not margarine of any type, regardless of how much a particular brand may be advertised to have that "real butter flavor."

When I bake bread and cut myself some slices of the warm freshly baked stuff, it would be sacrilege to eat it without real butter.

And today was no different.

The first two loaves out looked so inviting, smelled so good and I already had a stick of real butter on a little plate beside the cutting board - all ready for me to slap some of that yummy stuff on top of my slice of bread.

I also had supper cooking at the time -pork and sauerkraut - but because Miss Maya doesn't like that dish and refuses to eat it, I had warmed up a little plate of leftover spaghetti (which is pretty much a guaranteed item that she will eat) and given her supper earlier. The rest of us would have the pork and kraut and fresh bread for our dinner.

As I was slicing myself some bread, Maya came up beside me and informed me she too would like a piece of bread. No problem. I sliced a small piece for her, buttered it up and handed it to her. Since the bread was very warm - and the butter VERY cold - the heat from the bread melted the butter almost instantly so Maya had no butter there to take and slick of the bread with her finger as she tends to do with regular bread and butter when it's given to her.

But this was fine with her and in short order, she was back beside me asking for more bread. And I'm happy to oblige her with another piece. She watched me buttering it and kept repeating to me "bread and butter, bread and butter." Yes, baby, good homemade bread and butter. Gave her the second slice and she's happy. And before I know it, she's back asking for some more bread. Ok, since she'd already eaten her "supper" per se, but hadn't eaten every bit I'd given her, I figured what the heck. The bread can't hurt her so I give her the third slice.

I came into the living room to do something and she was bopping around from the living room to the kitchen and back - her normal - but then it got quiet all of a sudden and any parent will tell you that's generally a bad sign with a three-year-old. What is the child into now?

I glanced out to the kitchen and saw her at the counter where the bread - and butter - were sitting and I noticed she was on tip-toes, leaning forward into the counter. What the heck is she doing? I got up and as she heard me walking towards her, she moved and ran away. Leaving to my view the stick of butter with evidence that she had managed to get it close enough to her face and had bitten into the butter, right in the middle and gnawed away on it! Took out a nice little half-moon portion of the butter there she did!

And then, she re-appeared at my side, hand out to me asking "More bread and butter?"

So I cut a couple more slices of bread off, pared the butter off the stick from around where she had been nibbling like a little mouse and gave her yes, a fourth slice of homemade, warm, freshly baked Swedish limpa rye bread with her own private stash of butter on the darned piece too!

Just another instance of things that she does which prove that apple hasn't fallen far from the tree has it!

It reminded me of a time when I was about her age and as my grandmother was recovering from a slight stroke but my Mom was working, caring for an elderly patient about 12 miles from here, my Mom's cousin, Hedvig, would come up every evening and fix supper for my grandparents and me and stay with us till my Mom came home from work.

One evening, Hedvig had decided to bake and ice a nice layer cake and planned to have it ready as a little late night snack surprise for Mom when she got home from work. Since I had no absolute bedtime as a young child, I was still awake when Mom came in and Hedvig told her she had a little treat and for us to go to the kitchen to enjoy it over a cup of coffee.

When Hedvig turned the kitchen light on, there on the table sat her layer cake - but it was naked! Completely devoid of the nice chocolate frosting she'd made and put on the cake! The look on her face was one of complete shock as she stuttered and stammered telling Mom how she'd iced this cake and their eyes immediately looked over at me, knowing of course, I was the culprit who had so quietly snuck back to the kitchen, crawled up on the table and sat there, swishing my finger over the icing until I had eaten every last bit of the frosting off the top and sides of that cake! The only evidence that she had iced it was the frosting in between the layers, only because I couldn't figure out a way to get to that!

You know what they say about "Paybacks" don't 'cha? I guess I'm just getting my paybacks now for some of the things I did when I was a little kid too!