This idea made its way into his cute little head by way of a bedtime story titled Grandma, Grandpa, and Me by Mercer Mayer. In the story, a rodent-like character named Little Critter is dropped off at his grandparents' house for a sleepover.
One highlight of his stay is helping his grandma make a blueberry pie for the country fair. The book's cover shows Little Critter rolling out pie dough with a big bowl of freshly picked blueberries nearby.
Unlike the super-grandma in the story, I will admit to using pie crusts from the dairy case of our friendly neighborhood grocer and canned blueberry pie filling. There just aren't many blueberries ready for picking in Missouri in March, and I wasn't sure Beenie's attention span would hold through the old-fashioned dough-rolling process. (Besides, we had some serious playing to get done that night.)
But just like in the story, we filled a crust with a juicy blueberry filling and sealed it up tight. Just before that, Beenie reminded me to add the same secret ingredient Little Critter's grandma used--so we threw in a little love.
Then we marked it with a "B" for "Beenie" (and "blueberry") and put it in the oven to bake When it came out piping hot, this is what we had:
But not for long, because here is what happened soon after that:
With a little scoop of ice cream on top, our blueberry pie was a winner just like Little Critter's. Later that night, Beenie crawled in bed between Pa-pa and me for a good night's sleep--another idea he got from Little Critter.
Today, on Pa-pa's and my thirty-fourth wedding anniversary, our little blueberry pie boy turns three years old. So even though our pie is long gone, we will soon be diving into a chocolate cake with blue icing and dinosaur candles.
Somehow, I think Little Critter and his grandma would approve of that.
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