Game Addictions Can Be OK

When Lucy was five years old, someone gave her a Webkinz for a birthday present. It was a pink poodle. Being still a fairly newbie mom, I was all, "What's a Webkinz?" and the giver gave me a long explanation about online rooms and pets and games and I don't know what all while I just nodded politely.

Yeah, that was two years and six Webkinz ago (because Webkinz is brilliant. If you don't add a pet every year, your current pet DIES. I did not know that until another mother told me, fortunately, in time to save Nina, the pink poodle's, life.) Now we have Nina, a brown dog named Anna (during Elaine's phase of naming everything Anna), a white cat brilliantly named Kitty, a black cat named Winifred, a flowered turtle named Daisy, and a fox named England. I'll let you figure out which girl named what.

Lucy still loves Webkinz, but she has also graduated to the American Girl site, PBS Kids.org, and some music learning site she found out about at school. Elaine and I, however, faithfully visit Webkinz World every day. We do Love My Pet, the Wheel of Wow, Jumbleberry Fields, Gem Hunt, and the Wishing Well. We also visit the Employment Office. We like to make the money. Lucy likes to spend it. It all works out.

In June, Elaine's fancy was captured by the pet of the month, a pink pig who came complete with a music video called "Piggy Plum Pie." It is mandatory that we watch this at least once a day. She talks about it constantly and asks, "Can I get that pink piggy for my birthday? And her best friend, Chester the Cow and their other friend Lester the Dog for Christmas?" (Side note: She has mentioned her birthday and Christmas every single day since last December 12 and December 25, respectively.) Then she'll ask, "And can we make piggy plum pie, too?"

I've been promising all summer that we would make piggy plum pie together, and yesterday we finally did it. I found a recipe and bought the ingredients.

Here she is with her first task, picking off the stickers and washing the plums:


Now she's stirring the plums and other ingredients. Big sister got interested and wanted to watch:


Here she is with the ingredients in the shell. I told her to smile with her almost-made pie. This picture is also evidence that it's imperative for me to do the annual back-to-school haircut post SOON:


Then we made the topping. Here is her piggy plum pie, ready for the oven:


And here is the finished product:


We all had a slice of piggy plum pie with vanilla ice cream, and it was gooood stuff. If you want the recipe, just let me know.

And lastly, you must watch the video, too. It's only fair that I am not the only person with this song as my ear worm for the entire summer. It's catchy! And you just may find yourself making the pie and topping it with some ice cream high. You can thank Elaine and Webkinz.