Tomato Soup Cake and Lives Saved...

Ok, so this is to formally put any and all speculation to rest. Two of my friends who read my blog have asked me to explain Tomato Soup Cake and how I ended up saving Devyn's life twice. Now, I'm going to include a recipe for the cake; however, it's NOT the recipe my mother-in-law has perfected. I don't have that recipe because it has some secret ingredient in it and I think you either have to have kissed the Pope or been Brule by blood (my mother-in-law's family name), or to have been French Canadian by birth. So! Here we go!

Tomato Soup Cake is a very Southern dish. Go figure, because my mother-in-law is originally from New England, and hard-core Northern at that. Her great-grandfather was Whaler, and her mother still has the craziest strongest accent from Fall River, Mass, EVER. Anyway, she makes this cake once a year. It's a spice cake with nuts and fruit (raisins usually). It's ridiculously moist and although the name conjures up probably some really yuck stuff, if it's done right, it will BLOW YOUR MIND. Here's the recipe from allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed tomato soup
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup raisins

DIRECTIONS
Combine the tomato soup and the soda in a bowl, and let it stand.
Cream sugar, egg, butter, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. Mix in tomato soup and soda mixture, and then flour. Stir in the raisins, and pour the batter in a greased baking dish.
Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 1 hour, or until done. Cool the cake, and top with cream cheese icing.

Ok, now...how I managed to save Devyn's life. Twice...
She was about ten months old and she and I were in the kitchen while I was making supper. She was in her high chair and was happily enjoying some Zwieback toast while babbling to me about what Elmo had done that day on Sesame Street. She pretty well stopped babbling immediatly and I thought something had caught her attention, but when I looked over, she was very slightly blue. I grabbed her out of the highchair and threw her over my knee and started doing infant Heimlich on her back. It took about 15 seconds before the piece of cookie that was stuck in her throat shot across the kitchen. So. That was experience number one. Experience number two was much, much more magnanimous...

We had been in London about two months and Mike was off playing soccer one evening (it was a Monday--how do I remember that?). Devyn was 23 months old and I was again, in the kitchen cooking her supper. She was having chicken and green beans. Again, weird how I remember that. Now, it should be noted that the temperature in London during the summer can reach about 99 degrees, no breeze. Oh and no one has air conditioning. Read: miserable. Because of that, we had both french doors open and our windows, which were not typical sash windows. These had a handle that you turned and the windows opened inward from a side hinge. Hope that makes sense. Anyway, Devyn walked past the kitchen and said, "Mommy, I go play, k"? and made her way into the living room where her toys and the t.v. was. I brought her dinner in about 5 minutes later and sweet girl wasn't in there. So, I thought she was probably in her room playing or we had just launched into a game of hide-and-seek without my knowing it. I started playfully calling out to her, "Devyn...I need my baby bug"! Five minutes goes by without her answering and I was starting to get nervous...I had gone into every room of our apartment, which added up to five without finding her. I decided to go back into our bedroom and as I'm walking past our master bathroom, I hear her little voice..."Bye bye Mommy, I go fly now". I swear it was like slow motion. I looked in the door of the bathroom and there is sweet girl, standing in the open window (there was no screen) waving to me. We were on the third floor. She was standing on the outer ledge of the window on brick, three stories above concrete. I don't have to tell you that my heart stopped. I very, very carefully and calmly told her to look at mommy and stand as still as she could. I made it over to her (only about four steps, but honestly, it felt like a mile), managed to grab her wrist and pulled her as hard as I could. She fell onto me and we both fell back onto the tile of the floor. I held her more tightly that I think I ever had.

She was afraid of windows for a long time after that, but thankfully has no memory of the event. I however, will still close my eyes sometimes and I can see her falling out of the window, even though, praise the good Lord, she never took that fall. Mike thinks I had some post-traumatic stress afterwards and maybe I did. Whatever the case, God allowed me to keep my calm and keep her safe twice.

Ok, story told. Or stories apparently!