Can I Help?

Over the years, I’ve wallowed in guilt over not letting my kids help me cook or bake.

They always ask and I always just want to do it myself. It’s easier, cleaner, etc. if I do it myself.

But I knew, logically, that they weren’t learning anything at all by racing around me as I did the work in the kitchen. I wasn’t teaching them life skills by doing it all myself.

So yesterday when I announced I was going to make cookies, both A and O asked hopefully, “Can I help?”

And this time, I said yes.

Before we started I figured out which job each girl could do with minimal mess.

I had Alyssa measure out the flour, salt and baking soda into a small bowl and then mix it all up.

I let Olivia unwrap the butter, letting it drop into the bowl as she did so. She also dumped the sugars into the bowl after I measured them out for her.

I let Olivia start stirring the sugars and butter as Alyssa added the eggs and vanilla.

Then, once the mixture got stiff enough that the girls couldn’t muscle their way through stirring it, I took over.

We add three different types of chocolate chips to our cookies and so each girl got to dump in some chips. Olivia volunteered for the job of eating stray chips as they made their way on to the lip of the bowl. She was extra good at that one.

Once the cookies were baked, A and O took great pride and presenting a plate of them to Tom, letting him know that they had helped make them.

He declared the cookies the best ones ever baked. I’m inclined to agree. I think this might the beginning of some great things to come.