Summer Berry Crumble for Two

My dear Baby Girl,

Please come and have a tea party with me.

I know right now your little rose shaped lips don’t like warm, squishy fruit, but that’s OK.

I’ll eat the fruit, and you can eat the ice cream, because I know you like ice cream – and we can share the crumbles.

We’ll use your teeny tiny powder-blue porcelain tea set with the smooth pink insides.

And I’ll set the table pretty for us.

We can use our mismatched old tableware that has lots of swirlies on the handles – because when you’re little, those are the important things, those swirlies.

We’ll pretend our best cookie sheet is a fancy silver carrying tray.

I’ll set out our cheap linen napkins that I bought on clearance because I just couldn’t stomach the thought of paying $4 per napkin when I was buying so many – and we’ll speak of them as though they are golden silk.

Yes, silk napkins. It doesn’t have to make sense, Mommy. It’s pretend.

Let’s do this, Baby Girl.

Let’s start a tradition now, of pressing butter into oats and flour and spices, and tossing cut fruit with sugar crystals until our berries look like jewel colored gum drops.

Let’s place this ritual solidly into our psyches so that when you are a teenager, we can still find each other in the mess of life.

And when it’s baking away in the oven and filling our house with scents of moms and baby daughters and giggles and smooshy kisses pressed firmly onto warm pink cheeks, let’s paint our nails bright orange.

Let’s do that now, so when you are big and pulling away, and too cool to be too close, and you are rolling your eyes so much that they might get stuck up in your forehead – so that when all these things are happening and I’m not your one-and-only anymore but we still need each other – we can do this again and it will bring us back home – even if just for a little bit.

Let’s do it so that no matter what is going on outside our front door, (or in your heart, or with boys, or nasty teenage girls – whether you are sad, or angry or ecstatic, or just plain moody – no matter what is going on out there),we can close it all off for approximately 15 minutes of assembly time, 20 minutes of bake time, and (please Lord) – 30 minutes of eating time;  so for roughly 65 minutes we can bake our silly selves back to a buttery, cinnamony, sweet place of home with a side of ice cream; and we’ll paint our nails obnoxious colors and come back to each other.

Let’s do this now Little One, because I love you, and I want you to want to come back later.

Never-ending Love and kisses,

your sentimental Mommy

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