Day 282
My kids and I share a love of
baking. OK. Confession time. We share a love of eating: baking is
how we get our fix.
As willing assistants, the boys
crack eggs, stir chocolate chips into batter and roll cookie dough like the
seasoned professionals they are.
Watching them, I forget that not all kids grow up with a whisk in their
hand.
“Have you ever cracked an egg?”
I ask Rachel, a sweet, sweet kindergarten girl who stands beside me in our
kitchen. “No? Oh, this is going to be fun!”
Her eyes widen at my suggestion
that she crack two eggs into a clear, shallow bowl.
“Break them?” she asks
tentatively.
“Break ‘em wide open,” A.
instructs. For as
bull-in-a-china-shop as my youngest is, he’s unnaturally adept at cracking eggs
without getting shells in the batter.
Rachel shakes her head
side-to-side. “I don’t want
to. It sounds messy.”
“We love messy! Right?” A. nods his head in agreement. Messy is our motto.
We worry about cleanup after the cookies cool.
“How about if we take it
slow? Break it down, if you
will.” Rachel looks unconvinced as
I laugh at my own funny.
I hand her and A. both an
egg. “Take your egg,” I hold mine
up to demonstrate, “and tap it lightly on the counter.”
“Then,” A. jumps in, “you stick
your little fingers in the crack, pull it apart and drop the egg in the bowl.”
“Gently,” I add.
“Gently,” he repeats.
Rachel taps her egg.
“A little harder,” I
encourage. Her egg remains
perfectly intact. “Just a little.”
She taps again, this time
splintering the shell and creating a web of delicate lines.
“Use your fingers and gently
pull the shell apart.” I move the
bowl beneath her hands to
allow the yolk and white to slip
through her fingerss and drop into the glass.
“You did it!” I cheer.
She stares from the bowl to her
fingers to the remains of the shell, unsure of what just transpired. “My hands are all gooey,” she
smiles.
“Gooey’s good,” A. assures. For boys, it’s a catch-all answer.
Great post. I totally relate to the joy of introducing children to something new. When my son was younger, I took him and two classmates to the library. It was a routine trip for us; we went at least once a week. But it was the first time the other two kids had ever been to a library. I couldn't believe it and offered to take them several more times. I started to wonder if I'd become some sort of one-woman library-transportation system. Actually, that might have been a nice career, of sorts. :)
ReplyDeleteI bet your son's classmates LOVED those trips! I agree, library lady sounds like a fun way to spend the day. :)
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