OH, Suzanna! : Books and Patty Pan

After returning from the Rushville Public Library, and having a nice chat with Sue Otte this evening, my daughter and I settled in for the bedtime story ritual we have had since the day she was born.

http://www.educationquizzes.com/blog-for-parents/2013/06/the-power-of-words/

Now, most of the summer and fall months of 2013 were spent bent over one of the volumes of the Wizard of Oz series we found in the stacks of the children's section.

By Christmas we were a bit worn out with all the gallivanting that Dorothy and her friends had done so we decided to break off a bit and try Laura Ingalls Wilder.

My seven year old daughter is delighted to hear that these stories were created from true events in Ms. Wilder's life.

After all, my daughter aspires to be a prolific author herself. 

And she is well on her way already!

We started with Little House in The Big Woods tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_in_the_Big_Woods

My daughter interrupts continually to ask of me the meaning of foreign sounding terms:

"On Saturdays, when Ma made bread, they each had a little piece of dough to make into a little loaf. They might have a bit of cookie dough too, to make into cookies, and once Laura even made a pie in her patty-pan."

Daughter- WHAT is a PATTY-PAN?! 

Me- You know, patty cake, patty cake? 

Daughter- Noooo-ooo? That's patty CAKE, not patty PAN! 

Me- Well, its getting late and we can look that up first thing in the morning since there is ANOTHER snow day tomorrow! 

So what am I doing? 

Sitting up late at night Googling patty-pan...

Know what I found out? 

(I don't like not knowing an answer to my daughter's questions?! Yes, but that's not the point!)

Patty pans were for patty cakes...patty cakes were....CUPCAKES!

You are probably thinking - Oh, Suzanna! Do you live under a rock?!

Noooo-ooo! I just don't watch much television, obviously!

http://matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/public/sites/624/assets/3HWZ_Patty_Cakes___Lifestyle_01.jpg

So I keep following the worm holes that the search engines just set as traps for me to be side tracked in research....

until I am sitting up at 1:05 a.m. dunking Pecan Sandies into Irish tea and listening to Acadian Fiddle music wondering if that was what Laura's Pa's fiddle sounded like in that little cabin in the big woods.

Well, I feel much better prepared for THIS first-thing-in-the-morning-convo with the resident 7 year old inquisitor!

I can hear my mother right now:

Oh, Suzanna! Will you just go to bed?! For ONCE in your life?!

sigh....ok.

Good night my friends!

Very important update to this post -

Daughter-Inquisitor woke up the next morning and I eagerly awaited her to sit at breakfast so I could tell her about my discovery on the patty pan subject. 

Upon telling her everything, she just looked up from her plate and asked for ketchup to add to her scrambled eggs.

And added: "That's nice Mom."