One of Wesley’s new favorite pastimes is playing in the sink. I’ve been trying to get him to understand that he actually needs to ask me for permission to play in the sink before dragging over a chair and pulling an apron off the hook. But, alas. That will take some time.

I pull Carissa into the kitchen sometimes so she can watch him play. It’s surprisingly entertaining to her. She also likes to sit inside the back door and watch him play in his sandbox.

But after a few minutes I realized she was a little close to the utensils drawer.

Wes is finding his independence. For better or worse. He wakes up (too) early, usually around 6 or sometimes 5:30. I am really the type of person that sees no good reason to get out of bed before 7 am. But now that Wes is in a big boy bed once he’s awake he can tromp around as he chooses. He will often come into my room to get me. I’ll follow him back into his room with my pillows and lie on the bed that’s next to his. He’ll sometimes fall asleep again for a few minutes, or even half an hour. But sometimes he just fidgets noisily and crawls around the floor of his room while I try to ignore him and get more sleep, or until I give up and we both go downstairs groggily (I’m the groggy one, obviously, not him).

Today he woke up around 6 and I heard him go downstairs. I thought briefly, “I wonder what kind of things he’ll find to do to entertain himself” before realizing I didn’t care and fell back asleep.

About 15 minutes later Wes came into my room and I went downstairs with him. The fridge was wide open and the floor looked like this:

He had helped himself to breakfast.

Wes is frequently doing things that, even though I think I’m watching him, I still miss. Tonight I was looking all over for his PJ bottoms, which I had brought down from upstairs to put on him for bedtime. Couldn’t find them. I left him in his church pants and put him to bed. Later I looked down from the upstairs balcony and found his bottoms on top of the very tall entertainment system. He had tossed them up there when I wasn’t looking.

A few days ago I saw him pulling the bookmark out of my library book, a murder mystery. I was nearing the end of the book, almost to the whodunnit part. But my hands were busy so I let it go and figured I’d put the bookmark back later.

And then…my book disappeared. For three days I looked everywhere obvious and then everywhere unobvious. I could not find it anywhere. At times like these I wish I could ask Wes, “Where did you put my green book?” and that he could tell me. But I was on my own.

(Tonight John joined in the search for the book and found it on the floor under our bed. Apparently it had been pushed down between the wall and the mattress at the top of the bed.)

The book I was (and now am) reading is a mystery with recipes throughout. It’s a fun read. When I came across the recipe for Mock Apple Pie I decided to try it. I remember in one of the Little House on the Prairie books that Ma made a pie once out of something that was unexpected because they didn’t have much food on hand to choose from. Her family was all fooled into thinking it was the real-deal pie.

So here is my Mock Apple Pie.

It was super duper easy to make and turned out tasty, similar to apple pie but still different. It would be something to make if you were in a pinch and needed to produce a pie fast. And also if you don’t mind eating something that has even less nutritional value than regular apple pie. Yes, instead of apples you use crackers.

I won’t copy the recipe here but there are many to choose from online. Most call for Ritz crackers, but the book used saltines.

And on one more baking note, here is Wes “helping” finish up a batch of brownies tonight. So helpful. And Carissa looking on.