Thoughts from Home

My secret to perfect pancakes, how to play the piano, and Kit Murphree

On Sunday morning, Price and I spent an hour or so sprawled out on the nursery floor with Kit in her diaper and Annie close by. I felt like we were training a dog to come, as I patted the hooked wool carpet in front of me, watching as Kit considered moving, considered her transformation into a mobile baby. I’ve been saying it for quite a few weeks now…once she realizes her arms have the power to help her crawl, she’ll never look back.

And so that’s what happened, on a sunny morning after a diaper change. Kit made her way from one side of the bedroom to the other, from her mother to her father, and I felt my eyes sting with tears that never fell because I was too happy for her. The relief she must have felt to finally, finally possess the power to do something she wanted on her own…I’m sure it was magnificent in her little perfectly rounded head.

This whole week has felt somewhat significant in tiny little ways, in my mind at least. Things slowly and then all of a sudden happening, feeling as if we’re on the verge of change. I ran out of her very last bottle of Noodle & Boo bath soap, and while I know I could perfectly well go buy another, I have a stash of Pipette soap, and soap is expensive. Then last night, I noticed I was pumping twice for her bedtime lotion. My baby smells different, and she has more skin than she had even just a week ago.

I also ordered Kit an heirloom oak high chair from an Amish woodshop in Pennsylvania and have begun my research into making my own baby food (a decision only solidified after the arsenic laced apple juice revelation). She’s getting bored of her bottles and interested in my afternoon bowl of pretzels, and she can sit up on her own now for a minute or so at a time. But still, I keep putting it off, not wanting to give up a single bottle feeding, a promised little portion of time to hold her.

This weekend, we woke up Saturday morning and dressed her in a pumpkin onesie, dressed ourselves in sweaters for weather that didn’t call for them, and drove to a tiny nursery about thirty minutes outside of town, searching for pumpkins and mums for my October porch. Last year, we found a nursery in the opposite direction, one with little winding dirt paths that felt like hallways made from tiny pumpkins and gardens of mums. Last year, we spent entirely too much money there, our gender reveal the next weekend in our backyard, and I wanted pumpkins nestled everywhere. So this year, we had plans to go back there, taking pictures of Kit nestled into mounds of them, but our plans last minute were adjusted, and we found ourselves in a greenhouse with tiny chickens at our feet, billy goats where we checked out.

We came home, admired how pretty our orange mums look in baskets on our fresh green porch, and then we settled into the library, where our Saturday mornings and candlelit nighttimes and stormy afternoons are best spent. I tied my apron on and cleaned my new griddle, pulling out all the ingredients for the world’s very best pancakes: a batch made with buttermilk and browned butter, a recipe I found on TikTok and have perfected now after three tries.

My first batch was wonderfully decadent with chocolate chips and extra syrup, but only two or three were truly beautiful and without critique. I stacked a pretty one on top of a couple burned ones and called it divine. The problem was the butter…it was burning entirely too fast in the pan before each cake. So the next weekend, I tried another pan, wiping the black remnants of butter with a wet paper towel between each pancake. I also omitted the chocolate chips. That batch was okay…arguably more disappointing, because the butter was still burning my pancakes and I just couldn’t figure out why. My patience was dwindling.

Hence, the brand new griddle. My last try. I got just the $27 one from Walmart, long enough to fit three pancakes at once. For one, it went so much faster, but most importantly, the entire griddle was the same temperature, unlike my pan on a gas stove, so the butter didn’t burn as fast. I used a stick of salted Kerrygold and buttered a little circle before dropping each third cup of batter, wiping with a paper towel in between.

And…I’ve done it. A short stack that should make Cracker Barrel nervous. A pancake that, dare I say, rivals IHOP’s. I read in a cookbook somewhere that adding the browned butter into the batter brings the fat into the pancake, creating a moist interior even when cooked all the way through. And for any sweet concoction…isn’t that the goal? And then the pool of butter for each pancake to cook in on the griddle…that results in those crispy edges I’ve thought about every single day since. It’s the butter…that’s where the magic is. Cracker Barrel, I think, does the same thing, and last fall while pregnant, I couldn’t get enough of them. The day we found out Kit was a girl, we went to a Cracker Barrel afterwards, silently devouring those crispy soft pancakes, thinking of this baby girl we’d one day know.

As I soaked up as much syrup as I could on my last bite, stacked three high, I smiled to myself that one day, Kit might request them, she might find comfort in them. They might be big memories in her childhood, plates of syrup and butter and cartoons and pajamas past lunchtime.

On Monday, my brother and his wife moved into a tiny brick house around the corner from ours, and I spent Sunday afternoon and Monday morning making my thanksgiving cookies that were my mother’s molasses cookies first, my brother’s favorite. On Sunday night, I got a text from Gabe, “you can come over!”, the first of many I pray. I had already microwaved leftovers for dinner, but I wrapped them back in foil and set them in the fridge, wanting to get there as fast as I absolutely could. While we walked, I thought about Kit walking to her aunt and uncle’s house one day…and in that moment, I realized Gabe’s presence in the neighborhood will make me never want to leave my tiny little house all the more.

On Monday, it felt so momentous, that he was moving all his belongings just down the road. I keep thinking to myself…what a treasure it is to live to near family, what a treasure this will be in Kit’s childhood. Every thought I have these days revolves around how this might be a part of Kit’s life, it feels like.

The lady Gabe bought his house from is an old family friend of ours, our primary school secretary, a fixture at the flower shop, and somehow, the starting force to both of our living arrangements. When Price and I moved to town, she let us live in her rental, and then she was the one who told us about our little cottage, unlisted and waiting for someone to love it again. Her husband passed away last year, and after 47 years in their home, she decided to go where their children are, selling it to Gabe and Ainsley.

Monday night, as they moved an old chest she had left for them in the guest room, they tugged and tugged at a stuck bottom drawer. When they finally pulled it free, a letter fell out…a letter my dad had written to Mrs. Grace and her late husband in 2008, thanking them for being in our lives.

Significant things all around me this week.

She sold my dad their family piano, a beautiful oak Kimball only just barely in need of tuning. My dad is a stunning pianist, his ability God-given. My brother and I were classically trained, studying theory and chord progressions, memorizing jazz and ballet, memorably for me. I don’t think Gabe would be upset at me for saying I was better than he was…and enjoyed it a little more, despite my inclination to not enjoy anything once my parents made me do it.

Still, my dad called me and asked if we’d like it. Price having played, too, I immediately started moving furniture around in order to make a place for it in my home, never even having seen it. So on Monday night, selfishly, I pestered my dad and brother into taking a break from his monumental first home experience and move my piano. If I’m being honest, I was afraid he and Ainsley would sit down at it a few times, put a lamp on the corner, realize they wanted a home with one in it, too.

So six people carried the 300-pound instrument down the brick steps and into Dad’s flower shop delivery van, me and Gabe and his sister-in-law standing in the back with it as we inched to the front of my home. A long scratch in the hardwoods, sore arms, and a whole lot of effort later…my baby girl has a piano. It feels like we are giving her a piece of her childhood, but giving me one, too. Giving one back.

Every day this week, I’ve taken Kit and sat on the bench, nestled her little bottom in my lap, her knees under the keys, and pecked away. Remembering what sharps and flats are in each key, how to complete scales, which fingers to move on to get to the upper octaves, the third or the fourth, seeing how well I can sight read. I played for over a decade, taking lessons from a kind older woman with a grand piano in her front sitting room and then from our church pianist, the sanctuary empty and dark except for the piano light. It only makes sense how ingrained that teaching would be in my mind, my fingers, how quickly it can all come flooding back. I plan on going to my parent’s house in the next few days to pilfer through old sheet music, something to practice on so I can prove to Price I’m better than him, too.

Tonight, as I washed the dishes, I listened to Kit and Price in the library, her laugh hysterical as Annie only walked past her, that’s all. She loves Annie so, so dearly. Neither Price or I can make her laugh the way Annie does, despite the fact the only thing she does is be near Kit. But the sound of that laugh…it is the most wonderful thing. And as I held her before bedtime, her head tucked into my neck, her soft purring in my ear, I thought about how even though I’ll know her always, I’ll still miss versions of her. I’ll miss this version of her so, so dearly. I told Mom this a few days ago, about how God is so kind in how time progresses…we are almost always ready for the next season, we don’t always realize we’ll miss the last one.

But this week, I’m not feeling time as kind, as my baby crawls across the library, sits at her Fischer Price piano by herself, outgrows the Winnie the Pooh shorts Price bought for her just a few weeks after she was born.

I don’t mean for these to turn emotional always, but that’s why we write, right? To turn our thoughts into beautiful remnants on paper.

And so to tie this all together, I’ve thought of a younger Addy sitting down to play on the old standing piano my parents got from the college practice rooms, Gabe nearby…I think I’ve missed her, too. Perhaps Kit will inherit my dad’s hands, and this week, the week she got her piano, will be a precious, life changing memory.