Made in China

I had visions, before we moved to China, of buying a sewing machine here and doing all sorts of crafty sewing, finishing Milan's quilt, and buying lots of fun Chinese fabrics. But that has not happened. I borrowed a sewing machine from a friend over a month ago, but have yet to figure out how to thread the bobbin. If I sat down for half an hour I could probably figure it out, but there is the problem: no extra time! At this rate I hope I can finish Milan's "baby quilt" before he goes to college.

I did have time this week to make two things, although not with a needle and thread. The first was a leprechaun trap for St Patrick's Day. Yes, those sneaky leprechauns have made it all the way to China. Milan and I spent all day Wednesday creating a trap to catch one, complete with rocks painted to look like gold nuggets.

Milan, fresh out of the bath and in his PJs, with the leprechaun trap

The rainbow will lure him in, the gold nuggets will cause him to dash straight across the trap door in the top, sending him into an empty oatmeal container (we eat alot of oatmeal, in case you were wondering) where we would find him the next day and he would take us to his stash of gold.

Milan was very excited, but I had the most the fun making the trap. He made the very keen observation that leprechauns are like Santa Clause and the Toy-Eating Tookle (a Shel Silverstein character from his book, Falling Up) in that they only come into your house when you are sleeping. Then I told him he could add the Easter Bunny to that list. How terrifying to think of all these strange creatures and people running around your house while you are sleeping! It's no wonder kids have nightmares (but not Milan yet, knock on wood).

The next morning he was so excited, he was shaking as we went up to the trap and found little green footprints all over the table and the trap! That sneaky leprechaun didn't fall for our trick at all, but walked right around the trap door and took all our fake gold rocks! All that we found inside the trap were some green Skittles and vegan chocolate chips! I told Milan we would have to try again harder next year with a better trap, but he seems happy with candy and no pot of gold.

My other creation this week was an apple pie, from scratch. I have a long history of battles, anxiety, and failures with pie and with both store-bought crust and home-made. I thought it must be some genetic defect, but my sister makes the best pies from scratch every Thanksgiving, so I decided to give it another shot this week. Tim's Mom gave me a lesson last summer when we were visiting and Milan still talks about her peach pie. That lesson, combined with a few thousand articles, recipies, and how-to videos on the internet finally paid off.

And it tasted great too!

Now that I have mastered the crust, my only problem is that I have a limited supply of Crisco and can only buy it in Shanghai!