Homemade Pop Tarts (Because I Needed to Reclaim Mother's Day)

I don't know. I just found it sort of hilarious that while most of the other mothers depicted in the 1st grade class's Mother's Day book were pushing their children on swings at the park and making homemade goulash over a hot stove, my son chose to carefully draw a picture of his mother...SLEEPING.

I know that I shouldn't dwell on the part that my middle child depicted me LYING IN MY BED when asked to illustrate his mother and I know I should instead focus on the caption to the picture in which he said we like to cuddle. But really? Out of all the moments we share? At first I assumed the picture was perhaps a metaphor for something more. Maybe I was in bed dreaming of all the fun we have together...the playing catch, the reading, the laughing. But when I asked him why the illustration included a fanciful butterfly overhead the sleeping mother and whether or not my hunch that it actually signified our dreamy coexistence was correct, he deadpanned: "No, mom, that's your ceiling fan." Of course.

So I celebrated the fact that he likes my hair and that he wrote about my homemade pop tarts...the ones we made...one time...a couple of years ago. Apparently—hundreds of carefully cooked meals later—he recalls the experience, so I thought I'd feel better about myself as I mother if I tried to duplicate this pivotal moment in an act of love for my middle.

 He chose cherry jam at the farmers' market and we used it to fill a sweet dough we made and rolled out. We loosely followed THIS recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but as you can see, we got creative and made not just pop tarts but jam-covered monsters as well.

We had a lot of fun making them (great for a rainy summer afternoon since you probably already have all the ingredients in your cupboard) and Eli really did seem to enjoy the process. Plus, they were downright delicious.

Please don't misread this post. Though I will totally fess up to a pang of guilt?/sadness?/utter horror? about Eli's choice of illustration (we all have these moments of doubt, I'm sure of it), I honestly know that this wacky kid loves me and that, even on the worst days when all I can do is curl up in bed while the kids fight downstairs (I'm kidding! Really! I rarely take naps!), I'm still an okay mom.