"Making" cookies

To celebrate the Fourth and more importantly a lazy "no-work" day together, Babybear and I "made" cookies together. I had to laugh when Babybear woke up from his afternoon nap and I told him we were "making cookies".

When I was growing up, my mother's version of making cookies consisted of the real thing- peanut butter or chocolate chips, flour, sugar, and whole company of goodies. My mother whose second language is English worked full-time as a registered nurse, raised four children, and still had time to make any type of cookies we desired- peanut butter, sugar, banana, chocolate chip....

I respect the "Martha Stewart" in my mom and am proud to say that she passed that "gift" onto me. But while I can bake and cook, it may be a gift that has been for naught because my version of chocolate cookies were... well courtesy of Tollhouse. Babybear was able to break off 24 equally cut portions of chocolate cookie dough onto a cookie sheet and 16 minutes later was able to watch them cool and decorate with his "shakey-shakey's"

See last week, Babybear had found the sprinkles and walked around as I got ready for work, saying, " Coo-coo". Finally, I figured out that "coo-coo's" were cookies when he said, "Momma, no-go work. Stay here me! Shakey-shakey coo-coo's" Heartbreaking.

So, in the end, I swallowed my mommy-guilt about not making the cookies from "scratch", about not being able to stay home with Babybear everyday and all day, and for giving him Target brand red-dye sprinkles. Babybear could hardly contain his excitement when those cookies were laid out, waiting to be decorated. He actually stuffed them into his mouth faster than I could frost.... Babybear gleefully busted out all his red-dye "shakey-shakey's" onto the table, the floor, and eventually some of them got on the cookies.

My version still got us to where we needed to be- with frosting on our fingers and faces; there was lots of laughter as he dipped his fingers in the container of frosting and across his face and his shorts. We finished about one dozen frosted cookies later, but what about the rest? Well, the evidence is still somewhere on Babybear's face.