Homemade French Vanilla Creamer

Instead of telling you about Mother’s Day, I thought I would tell you about the day before Mother’s Day.

When raising our first batch of children my husband was very involved and often gave me a break so I could have “sanity time”. My children quickly established the connection between my need for sanity time and their behavior. One day after my two oldest children made a three story spider web with yarn from my knitting basket, they greeted my husband at the door and said, “Mom really needs sanity time tonight”.

Fast forward to our last child who was born after 9/11 and 10 days after my husband returned from a tour in Iraq. A major part of my husband’s civilian job is training pilots and SEALs before they deploy. He justifiably works very long hours. He is also a reservist which takes up many of his weekends. When he is not working at either of his jobs, he is playing with the kids, helping with homework, maintaining our vehicles, or our property. The only “me time” he takes is to go to the gym and in reality that is also part of staying in shape to pass his PRTs for the reserves. So I only leave him with my youngest child when I absolutely have to…like when I had a root canal. Which is why my husband never spent an entire day caring for Andrew on his own until last Saturday.

I often refer to Andrew as my husband’s clone. He is intelligent, creative, and very energetic – wonderful qualities in a husband, exhausting qualities in a 4 year old. I occasionally call my husband and share stories from my day which he finds amusing. When I called and told him about my son writing math equations in permanent marker on the closet door, he laughed and asked if they were correct. They were and my husband’s laughter brought me the relief I needed to get through the rest of the day.

On Saturday, I set out to visit one of our horses who has been sent to a training farm for instruction. I only intended to be away for a few hours, but one thing led to another and I ended up being out for 7 hours. So here are the highlights from the day:

11:30 I called my husband and he told me Andrew was bouncing off the walls so he took him to the park.

12:30 I called my husband and heard Andrew screaming in the background. My husband said he was “never taking Andrew in public again”. I suggested Andrew’s mood would improve with food.

1:30 I called to let my husband know I was going to be delayed further. He said, “food is overrated all it did was give Andrew more energy and he is back to bouncing off the walls”.

2:30 I called my husband to check on him and he said, “I completely understand how a mother could get addicted to crystal meth. This is exhausting”.

3:30 My husband called me and said, “Don’t come home with out caffeine, lots of it”.

4:30 I walked in the door with a can of coffee to a very grateful husband.

I didn’t realize until that moment how long it had been since my husband spent an entire day caring for a young child on his own. I feel really bad about taking pleasure from his pain, but his renewed appreciation for what I do every day was the best Mother’s Day present.

My husband doesn’t actually like coffee, just the results. He asks for his coffee “with maximum pollutants” which after I read the label on store bought creamer seemed like an appropriate description. In an effort to reduce the “pollutants” I created my own creamer recipe for my husband’s coffee.

French Vanilla Creamer

Ingredients:

14 oz. can of condensed milk
28 oz. milk
1 T – 1 1/2 T vanilla

Directions:
Pour the can of condensed milk into a pitcher. Fill the can two times with milk, adding the milk to the pitcher. Add vanilla to taste. Stir well. Keep refrigerated.

My daughter adds this creamer to her Chai tea and both of my teenagers add some to their cocoa.

I am sharing this recipe with Tasty Tuesday. I am also sharing this post with the Hearth and Soul Hop, where I am a host. If you have a homemade recipe, I would love for you to come and share it with us!