See you there! <3

I need to take this time to let you know that I do not care for baked fruit.  No apple pie, peach cobbler, or blueberry crumble for me, thanks.  So what possessed me to spend many hours of my life making miniature strawberry pies, you ask?

1. I saw them over at Rainy Day Gal‘s site, and fell in love with their cuteness.
2. David loves strawberries, and he IS a fan of baked fruit – so much that he would rather have that than a chocolate dessert almost any day.  Total weirdo, I know.
   
3. I really wanted to take Lauren to the local strawberry farm and pick berries, so I needed to have something creative to do with all those strawberries once I got them home.

The strawberry hunting picking was an absolutely great time for Lauren and her little cousin.  I highly recommend it for those with toddlers!

Snacking incognito!

I could post a million pictures of my kid being adorable with strawberries, but I shall refrain.  For now.

So without further ado, I give you miniature strawberry pies!  Here again is the link to RDG’s post: mini strawberry pies.

Miniature Strawberry Pies by Rainy Day Gal

Crust Ingredients:

• 1 cup cake flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter, cut into 1/2″ cubes
• 2 lightly beaten eggs

Crust Instructions:

• Mix the flours and salt together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. (I do not own a stand mixer – just my trusty hand mixer, which only has the beaters.  So I improvised on the next step and used a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour mixture.  It got me by.)

Old school tool.

• Add the cold butter cubes and mix on low for 1 minute, then add the eggs and mix on medium low until the dough forms a cohesive mass.

• Pat the dough into a disc, wrap in cellophane and place in the fridge.

Filling Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs fresh strawberries, to yield about 4 cups halved strawberries

My vote: perfect just like this!

• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 dash cinnamon (If I make these again, I will probably use several dashes of cinnamon.  Maybe even a tablespoon!)
  
• 1 dash nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• I went ahead and added 1/2 cup sour cream to the mixture, too.  Why?  Because I saw sour cream in another strawberry pie recipe and thought it sounded good, that’s why!

Filling Instructions:

• In a small bowl mix together the dry ingredients.

• In a larger bowl, toss the strawberries with the vanilla extract (and the sour cream, if you’re like me) and then toss with the dry ingredients.

Assembling The Pies:

• Preheat oven to 400F.

• Place a cupcake pan in the freezer.

• On a clean surface, roll out 3/4 of your pie dough until it is about 1/8″ thick.  (The whole “clean surface” thing did not work out for me.  AT ALL!  I had to flour, flour, flour my rolling surface so the dough would not stick.  And then I kept putting it in the fridge to let it firm back up, anyway.  Like I said, me and pie doe = not good friends.  Ah well.)

• Return the remaining 1/4 of the dough to the fridge.

• Cut circles in the rolled-out dough using a round that is approximately 3″ in diameter to make a total of 9 circles. (I wanted to fill a whole cupcake pan, so I made my dough stretch and made 12 circles.  However, this did not leave me with much dough leftover for criss-cross decorations on top of the pies.)
  

• Remove cupcake pan from fridge and lightly grease 9 of the cups with butter.

• Gently press each dough round into greased cups, coming all the way up the edges and leaving a small rim of dough at the top.

• Patch any holes with a pinch of extra dough from the refrigerator.

• If at any time you’re working with the dough and it becomes sticky, wrap and place in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before continuing.  (Again, this happened to me many times.  And I floured my surface.  Good luck to you!)
  

• Overfill each pie with strawberry mixture.

• Roll out remaining dough and slice into 1/4″ to 1/3″ strips.

• Lay strips of dough across each pie in a criss-cross pattern, pinching each seam together as you go along.

• Place cupcake pan on top of baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes.

• If the crust is ever becoming too brown, cover pies with aluminum foil and continue baking. (I did end up covering mine with foil for the last 10 minutes.  No big deal!)
  

• Let cool in pan for 30 minutes, then remove and let pies cool completely on a wire rack before serving.

• Makes 9 pies.  (Or 12, if you do like me.)

Messy, but still CUTE!

Very good with coffee, much better with the (not pictured) whipped cream!

The verdict?  Not surprisingly, I wasn’t in love with the pies, but my family sure was!  My brother likes them the best of anything I’ve tried out on him so far! David really liked the filling, but he said the crust needed to be a little sweeter. So if you know how to do that, you might want to take his recommendation into consideration. All in all, I’m definitely glad I tried them out, and I really appreciated all the compliments these little guys won me, so thank you, Jenny!

Hope you all have a great week!

Becki

From me, to you!

Well.  WELL.  All that boxed stuff is out the window now.  I just made the best brownies of my LIFE, thanks to Shauna at Piece of Cake.  These brownies are so good, that I’m blogging about them ON THE SAME DAY THAT I MADE THEM. When’s the last time THAT happened?  Never, that’s when!

So, in case you didn’t catch it in that last paragraph, here’s the link to the recipe: Best Cocoa Brownies EVER!!

I pretty much followed all the instructions, except for melting the first 3 ingredients over simmering water.  I just put them in a glass bowl and put that directly on the burner over medium heat.  I’m a rebel, I know.

I also added 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips to the batter.  Why?  Because I’m pregnant and I can, that’s why!  I would have also added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, but David doesn’t really care for nuts in his baked goods, and I also didn’t have any walnuts.  So instead I added 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, sprinkled over the top (so Dave could easily scrape them off) about halfway through the baking process.  Which took a lot longer than the 25 minutes that Shauna claims.  Mine were done in about 40 minutes.

Perfection!

Oh, and did I mention how rich these bad boys are??  I, the choco-holic brownie fanatic was well and truly satisfied after one small brownie.  (Small for me, anyway.  Shauna said this makes 16 brownies.  I made it into 12.)

You know you want a bite!

What’s that you say?  No wonder I was full, seeing as how I added a scoop of ice cream?  Huh.

Say goodbye to the box!

Becki

What’s that?  I’m a little late on the Easter wishes?  Well, I still hope you had a great holiday, and that you continue to have a lovely spring.  With the weather we’ve been having here, it’s hard not to fall in love with life again.  Hope blooms anew with the flowers and green things!  Weren’t seasons a great idea?!

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
 You know how it is with an April day
 When the sun is out and the wind is still,
 You're one month on in the middle of May.
 But if you so much as dare to speak,
 A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
 A wind comes off a frozen peak,
 And you're two months back in the middle of March.
 -Robert Frost

So let me tell you about my Easter celebrations and baking.  If you’re into cute food, you will love the baking!

Dave’s Mom courageously volunteered to have Easter dinner (lunch) at her house – and invited my Dad, my brother and his family to come over, too.   That’s a lot of cooking, cleaning, and hosting that she signed up for!  Have I ever mentioned how awesome my Mother-In-Law is??  Super awesome, that’s how!

Knowing that I have this little baking obsession, she went ahead and asked me to handle the dessert.  As if she could have stopped me from bringing one!

Thanks to Bakerella, I am totally consumed with the idea of home-made “pops.”  They’re just so stinking cute, crafty, and different!  I also happen to LOVE the white fudge Oreos that come out for a limited time each winter, so when I found this recipe by Jenny at Picky Palate, my little brain wheels started turning!

People gag-gifted Oreos to David over Christmas because if you know my hubby, you know that Oreos are one of the only sweets that he really enjoys.  And since he’s not a big sweet eater, even of Oreos, and because I would rather make my own treats than dig into the Oreos, we have a ridiculously huge stash of them in our Pantry.  Everything from bite-sized to traditional to double stuff!

Because everything is cuter in miniature, and also because I had found a really cute, springy-themed plastic cup that I wanted to use for my pops at Wal-Mart, I knew I wanted to make the pops out of the miniature Oreos, and so I did the following:

Miniature Oreos do not come with enough filling to accomodate a lollipop stick on their own, so I opened up a few Double Stuf cookies, scraped out their guts and nuked ‘em so they’d be spreadable.  Then I opened up the minis, added some extra Stuf, squished a stick  into ‘em, and closed them back up, like so:

This is what the assembly line would have looked like if my Grandmother made Oreo Pops. And took pictures. And shared them with me.

You didn’t need that in color, did you?  They are black and white cookies, after all.  And I’m a little fascinated with PW’s Vintage Action at the moment.  Bear with me.  Anyway, after you’ve got as many Oreos as you’d like on sticks, let them set for about half an hour or so – that way your melted Stuf will unmelt.  Got that?

Then you can either be like Jenny, and use white melting chips to make some pretty colors for your pops, or be lazy like me and use already colored melting chips to dunk your pops.  Either way, you can’t go wrong.  Be bold, be creative, have fun!

The front of the bouquet...and the back!

Like I said, I love pops.  But we needed to have something a little more substantial to satisfy our (my) sweet teeth, so I also made some cupcakes.  And not just ANY cupcakes, but ones inspired by the fabulous Bakerella, of course!  Not only are these guys completely adorable, but I also loved the idea that everybody – adults (particularly ME) included – would get their own Easter basket.  Because let’s be honest…I’m not the only one who misses waking up to a basket full of goodies on Easter morning, am I?

I’m not normally a huge fan of carrot cake, but I had used this recipe a few months ago to make my Dad’s birthday cake and it was fabulous.  So, because it’s Easter, and there’s the whole bunny thing going on, and bunnies love carrots, I made carrot cupcakes ala my favorite PW.

Sadly, this time around the carrot cake recipe and I did not get along.  I don’t know what the problem was, but the first batch I made, I overfilled the cupcake liners, which made a huge mess in my oven and almost caused me to give up on the carrot cake from scratch idea altogether.  However, I tried again because my sweet David volunteered (OK, I asked and he acquiesced) to go buy more sugar AND grate the next batch of carrots.  Side note:  I.Hate.Grating.

'Nuff said.

The second batch looked beautiful, so I continued on my merry way.  Little did I know that they actually turned out rather dry – I did not taste test any until Easter dinner.  Sooo – sorry for the second-rate cupcakes, guys!  Still, I totally loved how they looked, and I will probably be making these little baskets again next year, but with a different cake recipe.  Apparently most of the guys (my husband, my brother, my father-in-law…) aren’t crazy about carrot cake, either.  Works for me!

I’m not posting any recipes, since I included the links to the originals above.  And for the baskets, you can use pretty much any candy your heart desires.  Here’s what I used:

Do you see those adorable little animal jellies in the center back, there?  Oh yeah.  PRECIOUS.  And of all the places, I found them at the dreaded Wal-Mart!  $1/pack!  Totally awesome.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for:

Me to finally end this post.  Ha!

Love ya,

Becki

I usually keep my head in the sand when it comes to politics and the like, but this is one worth hearing and thinking about.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

David’s cake request for the past 3 or so years in a row now has been a chocolate cake with FRESH strawberries incorporated somehow.  My first several attempts were not that great.  It’s hard to put fresh strawberries into baked goods!

But this year I hit the jackpot, my friends.  I combined elements from several different cakes that I found intriguing/delectable.  I made a chocolate genoise cake, with a mascarpone cream and fresh strawberry filling, topped with a white chocolate icing.  Then I went ahead and used fresh chocolate covered strawberries and a dark chocolate ganache to decorate it.  Hellooooo, little slices of heaven!

I had never had mascarpone anything before, but it sounded pretty amazing and I have been into trying new things lately.  Boy am I glad I did!  I don’t know how to describe it exactly…maybe something like fresh whipped cream meets sour cream and cream cheese.  Kind of.  It’s a very delicate, fresh taste.  You just gotta try it yourself to see what the heck I’m talking about.

And after making Dave’s cake, I had plenty of mascarpone cream and chocolate ganache leftover, as well as some of the white chocolate icing, so today I went ahead and used my favorite mocha cupcake recipe to make MORE fabulous treats.  I think I like the cupcakes even better than the cake!  The cake was VERY good, but the white chocolate icing and the fresh strawberries in the filling don’t do well after a day or two.  That cake is made to be eaten same-day.

So here’s some recipes for ya:

David’s Chocolate Genoise Strawberry Mascarpone Cream and White Chocolate Icing Cake

(yes, I am aware I will need to come up with a shorter title for that one.  Later, my friends…later.)

Le Cake!

Chocolate Genoise Cake Ingredients:

-3 tbsp melted unsalted butter

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1/2 cup cake flour

-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-4 large eggs

-2/3 cup white sugar

Cake Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350°

-Spray 9″ round pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

-In small bowl, combine butter and vanilla

-In medium bowl, sift flour and cocoa (yes, I did actually sift it this time.  It’s not much flour, the sifting goes quickly!)

-In large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar.  Place over saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly until lukewarm.  Remove from heat and beat on high until mixture has cooled, tripled in volume and looks like softly whipped cream (approximately 5 minutes)

-Sift 1/3 of flour mixture over whipped eggs and gently fold in.  Repeat until all flour is folded in. (No, I did not sift it a second time.)

-Take 1 cup of batter and fold into butter mixture.

-Fold butter into batter and pour into prepared cake pan.  Bake approximately 20-25 minutes.

Mascarpone Cream Filling Ingredients:

-1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

-2/3 cup granulated sugar, separated

-8oz mascarpone cheese

-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Filling Directions:

-In a chilled bowl, with chilled beaters, beat whipping cream and 1/3 cup sugar until stiff peaks form.

-In separate bowl, cream mascarpone cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla until creamy.  Combine with whipped cream.

Cake, sliced in half, with mascarpone filling topped with sliced strawberries. Then I put more filling on the other half of the cake, slapped the two halves together and iced the whole thing. Got it??

White Chocolate Icing Ingredients:

-3/4 cup white chocolate, melted over low heat

-3 tbsp flour

-1 cup milk

-1 cup sugar (I think they meant granulated sugar.  I started creaming the butter with granulated sugar and then freaked out because aren’t you always supposed to use powdered sugar for icing?  So I threw it away and started over with powdered.  It worked great with powdered sugar, but I have since found several similar icing recipes that use granulated sugar.  So it’s your call.  I can vouch that powdered sugar works….others say granulated is amazing in this recipe.)

-1 cup butter

-1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Icing Directions:

-Stir flour into melted chocolate.  Add milk gradually and blend well.  Cook over medium heat until very thick. (This takes a long time.  Like maybe 15 minutes or so.  Have patience and stir well!)

-Cool completely.

-Beat sugar, butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.

-Gradually add chocolate mixture and beat until consistency of whipped cream.

This cake did not last long! Yum!

As I mentioned before, I had plenty of leftover mascarpone cream, icing, and chocolate ganache so today I made my favorite mocha cupcakes with them!

You can find the recipe for the mocha cupcakes here.

Basically, I used a spoon to make a hollow in the cupcakes, like so:

Makin' room for some filling!

and then I put my leftover mascarpone cream in a ziploc with the end cut off and filled the hollows with deliciousness.  Then I put some of the cupcake back over the filling, like this:

Cupcake caps!

And then I microwaved my leftover ganache, and spread it over as many cupcakes as I could.  When I ran out of that, I made a vanilla sugar cookie icing out of sugar water and powdered sugar, and used it on the rest of the cupcakes, so I ended up with these:

Not so pretty, but oh, SO good!

I thought that I loved these mocha cupcakes with the white chocolate icing, but I think I love them even more with the mascarpone filling and dark chocolate ganache. They. Are.  Awe.some!

Happy baking,

Becki

At first I was pretty torn up over the idea of Dad selling the house that I grew up in, but now I can’t wait for him to move to his new farm.  The old house is a wonderful and terrible place full of memories, and I think it overwhelms all of us when we’re there.  I know it does me.  I’m developing the opinion that memories are sweet, as long as they’re not too tangible.  At least in this case.

The new farm is pretty incredible.  It needs work – lots and lots of work – but Dad has already thrown himself into the task and he’s making it into HIS place, which I think is the best kind of therapy he could be getting right now.  And there is such an air of peace at that property.  It’s out in the country, and the sunsets are gorgeous.  You can hear the neighbor’s cows lowing in the distance, which I’ve discovered is an oddly comforting sound.

There are two bench swings at the farm – one in the back yard overlooking the pasture, and one on the front porch.  Lauren and I both zone out in the one in the yard…I can sit there and peace just washes over me.  No worrying about money and bills and all the annoyances of day-to-day life.  Just clear sky, open space, beautiful trees – it’s easy to see God’s hand and remember that He cares when I’m sitting out there.  It also feels like Mom is smiling down on us.  I really think she would love the place and what Dad is doing with it.

OK my next post will be a yummy one, I promise.  Caramel apple sticky buns!!

Hang in there,

Becki

But during the quiet times throughout the day, and especially at night, that little rock becomes something different and it starts unfolding itself and becoming a web of memories, regrets and longings.

When I’m out doing things with other people, Mom’s passing is just a fact.  It’s that manageable little rock that can be pushed aside or put into a box and dealt with.  When I’m home with Lauren during the day, taking stock of things and making plans for the future is when it starts to get fuzzy again.  Mom will never meet this new little girl coming in June; she will never see me ride the horse she gave me; she won’t gather with the rest of us at Dad’s new farm; she won’t tell me what she thinks about my redecorating ideas for my own house – she is GONE.  And somehow my life is going on without her.  But not, because every little thing eventually reminds me of her.

I have been dreaming of Mom almost every night lately.  The dreams are all different, but the ending is the same.  Mom is always sick and in the end she is dying and there is nothing that I can do about it.  I often wake David up with my tossing and moaning, but the dreams aren’t all bad.  I’ve dreamed of talking to Mom about many of the things going on in my life right now and it feels so good to be able to share with her again; although her dream advice and commentary is much more blunt and irritated than it was in reality.  I’m not really talking to Mom, after all…I’m talking to my injured sub-self.

I’m not the only one missing Mom.  I have been thinking about reaching out to her friends in a selfish effort to comfort myself by finding some piece of Mom in them, but it doesn’t work like that.  I did run into one of Mom’s very best friends a few weeks ago and when she saw me, she looked like she was seeing a ghost.  We were in a place that we both had been with Mom before, and seeing me there clearly confused and hurt Mom’s friend.  She had been lost in involuntary thoughts about Mom and I was not the answer that she was looking for.  That was a strange realization for me – that the world does not revolve around me and my own grief.

Be good to one another – better than necessary, even.  You never know what’s going on under the surface.

Still learning,

Becki

So for our church Valentine’s banquet this past Friday, I went all Bakerella and made marshmallow swirl brownie pops and red velvet cake pops.  I think they turned out absolutely adorable, but honestly, I have no idea how Bakerella does all the intricate, detailed confections she is constantly cranking out.  I think I ended up making roughly 30 pops, and it took me approximately 6 hours.  Much like my hair and make-up, I do not have the patience for that kind of cuteness!  And my pops were way messier looking than Bakerella’s, too.  Yargh.  Although in my defense, Bakerella does not have one of these cute little bundles of destruction tugging at her legs while she does her thing:

Lauren <3's Tupperware!

I am glad I made the pops, I just don’t see them coming up in my future again soon.  Especially since they were heart-shaped.  The heart-shape makes it really difficult to smoothly and quickly coat them with the candy melts.  Round pops are much easier!  So if you’re feeling totally adorable and froggy, here’s the scoop on all things Pops:

Red Velvet Cake Pops by Bakerella

Ingredients:
-1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake, or 2 rounds.  It does not matter.)

Mmm....cake!

-1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.) I only used 1/2 the can.  I don’t know why.  If I do these again, I’ll probably go with the whole thing!
-1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate or other colored candy melts, depending on your project!)
-wax paper

Directions:

-After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl. (I crumbled it into big chunks by hand, then used a mixer to really pulverize it.  What?  I already said I don’t possess an abundance of patience!)

Crumbled cake!

-Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.) Fingers, Bakerella?  Puh-lease.  I used the mixer here, too!

-Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)  OK, for this step I used a heart-shaped candy mold to squish little chunks of the cake mix into, well, heart shapes!

Candy mold! Not to be confused with moldy candy....

-Carefully insert lollipop sticks into your cake balls/hearts/what-have-you.

Super cute already, no?

-Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.  You know I stuck mine in the freezer!)

-Melt chocolate (or candy melts) in microwave per directions on package.

-Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.) I used a knife to spread the candy coating on my pops, and then I stuck them in a styrofoam block and put them in the freezer so they wouldn’t take so long to set up.

ah candy melts...so much potential...so much more frustration!

-Then I made little tags for my pops, like so:

Yes, they are messy. I was running out of time!

-Then I bagged ‘em and tagged ‘em, and stuck em in cute little vases like so:

Oh yeah, I also added sprinkles to my pops. The red ones aren't melting, they have white glitter sprinkles!

-For the brownie pops, I used a box of fudge brownie mix.  I made these once before and made them according to the “fudgy” brownie directions and they turned out awesome.  This time for some reason I thought I’d try making them according to the “cake-like” brownie directions and my pops came out kind of dry.  So, go fudgy with your fudgy brownie mix!  Then crumble your brownies while they’re still warm, grab a jar of marshmallow creme and nuke it for about 20 seconds.  Add most of that to your brownies and roll into pops as directed above!

Then last night I made a whole meal o’love for David and my Dad, ala The Pioneer Woman. This involved spending another half a day in the kitchen…but it wasn’t quite as labor intensive as those crazy Pops.  I made Drip Beef Sandwiches, which both my Dad and Dave were somewhat skeptical about until they actually tried them.  Then it was nothing but “more, please!” I also made onion straws, and roasted garlic mashed potatoes.  And salad, of course. Everything was fabulous.  But the icing on the cupcake, if you will, was the LIFE by Chocolate Cupcakes.  Just look at these beauties:

Now let’s start at the beginning:

Monday morning Lauren threw up her bottle of milk.  Not really a big deal, but then later that afternoon I noticed her getting warm and whiny, took her temp and it was 102.8.  I gave her Tylenol, and stayed up with her as she tossed and turned most of the evening, giving her Tylenol a couple more times when her fever got high.  She had no more vomiting, no runny nose or cough.

Tuesday she was somewhat lethargic – she took several naps throughout the morning and early afternoon, which is unusual for her, but wasn’t too worrisome given that she hadn’t slept much the night before and she was still not feeling well.  I gave her Tylenol without taking her temperature when she started feeling hot around 3pm, then we packed up and did our grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, where she was very happy and interested in everything.  When we returned home I fed her a bottle and she fell asleep, so I put her down in her bassinet.

Between 6:30 and 7:30pm (not sure of the exact time) she woke up crying while Dave and I were cooking dinner.  David got her out of the bassinet and brought her to the kitchen where I was cooking.  He left her standing in the floor and went back to the grill.  She stood next to me crying for about 30 seconds, then out of the corner of my eye I saw her fall backwards, hitting the left rear of her head on a closed cabinet on her way down.  She immediately stopped crying and just laid there, so I scooped her up and took her to the bedroom with the intention of checking her over, taking her temperature and giving her more Tylenol.  While carrying her to the bedroom, I realized she was 100% limp, and started getting an inkling that something was very wrong.  Lauren is never 100% limp, not even when she’s sleeping.  So I laid her on the floor and took a closer look at what was going on.

Her eyes were open, but looking to the right and not tracking or responding to anything.  I called for David, and by the time he got to us, the fingers on her right hand had started twitching, but the rest of her remained limp and unresponsive.  David told me to get the phone and he called 911, and while he was on the phone with them the twitching in her right hand gradually got more severe and spread to her arms and legs until her whole body was seizing.  She never stopped breathing, and never vomited, but I am so, so thankful that David was here when this happened.  Saying that I was hysterical would be putting it mildly.  I don’t know how he spoke so coherently with the 911 people, but he was amazing.  The sight of my baby not responding and twitching was enough to drive me mad.

Neither Dave or I had ever heard of febrile seizures before…and since she hit her head falling we thought she had broken her neck or something.  We thought she was seizing because of that, and that she was going to die or be a vegetable.  I have never prayed so hard, felt so helpless, or been so horrified in my entire life.  Waterboarding has nothing on the torture of putting a parent through this kind of ordeal.  At least not in my book.

The first officer on scene quickly moved to Lauren’s twitching body and examined her while radioing to the rescue vehicle.  A few minutes later, the firemen arrived, followed quickly by the EMS guys with the ambulance.  All of this took minutes, but seemed like an eternity.  By the time that EMS arrived (roughly 5 minutes?) and started strapping her to the body board, she was becoming alert and starting to cry again.  They took us down the street to a helicopter and the helicopter took us to Sacred Heart in Pensacola.  I never thought I would get in a helicopter, but I did not hesitate last night.  That bird was not taking my baby without me! I sat up front next to the pilot, and Lauren was in the back with the paramedics.  There was a canvas divider up, so I could not see what was going on, and they put earphones on me with the explanation that I would be able to speak with the pilot, but I think the main idea was that I wouldn’t hear Lauren and freak out.  Freaking out in a helicopter with all the buttons and things at my fingertips…well, the ending of this story would be much different!

The chopper pilot and crew were awesome, kind people.  The pilot tried to make nice talk with me, but I was not an attentive audience.  I do remember him saying he has a 4 month old daughter named Katherine Elizabeth.  Other than that, I sat frozen with my hands clasped, idly watching the nighttime bird’s eye view of the world beneath me, begging God to let Lauren be OK.

When we got to the hospital, I was greeted by a sea of medical faces and questions that were all a blur.  Lauren was taken to an ER room, where the somewhat disinterested, shaggy haired doctor ordered a CT scan, and Lauren was wheeled to yet another room for the scans.  She was very alert and very angry and scared at this point.  Apparently she was not cooperating with the “lay still for the CT machine” direction, and the doctors tried to get me to stand with her, until I told them I was pregnant.  They quickly shuffled me back out, where I waited for what felt like eons.  Finally they were satisfied with the images, and brought Lauren back out to the ER room and told me that everything looked normal.  Words that meant nothing to me at the time, such as “febrile seizure” were thrown around, Tylenol was administered, paperwork was shuffled, Lauren cried much and at some point the shaggy haired doctor poked his head back in to say something that meant nothing to me.  Then David appeared, and so did a nurse, who spent the next 20 minutes unsuccessfully attempting to draw blood from my baby.  Torture for Lauren and for us, although I was so, so relieved to have my crying baby and not the limp, unresponsive girl who laid on my bedroom floor.

My wonderful in-laws arrived, our church pastor arrived, and the shaggy haired doctor returned to complain that the doctor who read the CT scan thought he found something indicating developmental problems, and that she would have to wear a neck brace all night until a neurosurgeon could take a look at the CT images.  The guy was ready to walk back out – David basically had to be all, “Excuse me??  Developmental problems?  WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”  And Dr mumbled something about it having nothing to do with the seizure, which was more than likely febrile in nature (again, WHAT? and he explained) but might cause other problems down the line, the neurosurgeon would explain it all in the morning.  UGH.

Long story shortened, all the nurses and doctors and everybody that we saw once we were taken up to the infant/toddler ward were awesome, caring people.  I still love the Sacred Heart hospital system, even though the ER doc left much to be desired.  The neurosurgeon arrived at 7am, had us briefly recount the evening, advised us in no uncertain terms that Lauren had a febrile seizure, which was not to be worried about.  Then she looked at the CT scan and said that what the ER doc was looking at was the result of Lauren not being still for the scan, but ordered x-rays to be safe.  The x-rays did not show anything, so there is no developmental issue in her neck, and everyone at Sacred Heart agrees that Lauren had a febrile seizure.

Her blood work showed her white cell count was normal, so that ruled out infection.  They also tested for RSV, although not for influenza, which kind of bothers me.  The Sacred Heart folks said she has a virus that is causing the fevers, and the fever caused the seizure.  She had a Febrile Seizure which the doctors tell us is common (1 in 20 children between 6 mos and 6 years old will experience one) in infants and toddlers when they have a sudden and drastic rise in temperature. I do not know how many of you have witnessed someone, much less an infant, having a seizure, but that was the most frightening thing I have ever witnessed.  The blank look on her face, the rolled eyes and the jerking limbs will haunt me forever…

Lauren is sleeping soundly at the moment but we’ve been holding and hugging and watching her relentlessly.  It’s funny (or just sad) how we can go days just running through our schedules on autopilot without fully appreciating this precious little girl we hold in our hands.  I love my daughter more than my own life but I rush around the house too much, I get bored with her games too quickly, I forget what a gift I have been given too easily.  I regularly pray for Lauren’s safety, spiritual life and health, and do my best to trust God with her life but this experience really brought home the fact that my own sense of control is an illusion.

Tomorrow we have a follow-up appointment with our local pediatrician, who we hope will determine exactly what this virus is that’s causing the fevers.  I’ll keep you posted!

Cherish every moment together,

Becki