Adventures with Two: What's cooking?

Valentine's sweeties and their
balloons! Which are named
Valentine, and Valentine's
Day, respectively.

I remember before Elise was born (so many of my blogs start this way), I  wondered how, in the world, I would cook dinner. Sometimes I still wonder this. I did discover that it's possible:

Month 1: The world cooks for you. Friends and family deliver delicious meals to your door, and when they don't, restaurants do. 

Month 2: From the freezer to the oven, and sometimes back again.

Month 3-6: Reality hits. There will be no more "free meals." Fortunately, the baby naps a lot and the older child sees cooking as quality time, so food lands on the table somehow.

Months 6-9: You never stop cooking. The baby needs special food, the older child sometimes needs special food to feel special, too, and dinner still needs to be made ready. However, in this golden age of child-rearing, the baby is often happy on the floor for full minutes at a time, but can't yet crawl fast enough to be a problem.

Months 9-15 1/2: Dinner gets cooked in 30-second increments for a whole variety of reasons.

Month 16: The baby decides she wants to be involved in the dinner-cooking process, and simply can't be held off or distracted any longer.

Whew, thank goodness the girls are both old enough to help! After all, both can stand on a chair, sometimes without pushing each other off, and "measure," and "pour," and "mix"--what more do I need? With double the help around the kitchen, meals will be whipped up twice as easy, and twice as fast! Twice as delicious, too! Right?

So why do Matt and I both cringe inwardly at times when we're about to embark on making pizza crust or beef stew and we hear, "I want to help!" followed quickly by, "Ooh! Oooh! Ooohh!" as both girls race to drag over the stained chair I've designated as the cooking stool and clamber up before I can say "sharp knives, hot pans and raw meat?"

All of a sudden, our task changes from just throwing the ingredients together to making sure Elise doesn't fall off the chair (which she would, every single time, if we weren't so vigilant), helping Kalina help us measure and dump (which she's actually quite good at), or pushing dangerous or messy items far out of reach from Elise's grabbers. Our actual dinner becomes an afterthought.

Because what parent says, "No, you may not help make dinner?" Despite our inward groans, we try our best to pipe up, "It'd be wonderful to have some help!" Because it really would, and the girls are cute.

Elise's first pan of brownies is in the oven!

With the addition of a toddler to our meal preparation task force, Kalina feels shoved aside (literally and figuratively) and I feel flustered, but Elise couldn't possibly be prouder of her new status as "kitchen help." The ecstatic toddler debuted on a pan of brownies.

Elise is every bit as eager of a baker/cook as her older sister, albeit a little less precise at the moment. Whereas Kalina can break an egg for me (I still open it up to spill the contents, though), accurately measure ingredients, and be trusted not to dump the mixing bowl's contents onto the counter, Elise is far too willing to try her own hand at these tasks than my comfort level would generally allow, and has caught on to our general methods with remarkable speed. We've reached a tenuous agreement where she can play with the measuring cups and spoons not in use, and occasionally dig in flour or sugar with them. She's negotiating hard for the eggs, but I won't give in.

Although Kalina, by virtue of her more advanced age, is currently more adept in the kitchen than Elise, she, too, is still learning the ropes. This week alone, in fact, she's discovered that when she turns the mixer onto a high speed when Mommy's not looking, the top inch of contents gets flung onto the counter top--and any animals who happen to be sitting there to watch. She's also learned the "glob" method of frosting cupcakes (a big glob here, another big glob there, a few Christmas tree sprinkles, and voila! A Valentine's cupcake!). We clean up a few extra messes, guesstimate baking powder on occasion and sometimes send an armful of stuffed animals through the washing machine--and not just because they enjoy the ride. We've decided that when she's four, she can crack open an egg all by herself, and by the time she's five we're both sure she'll be making cookies with virtually no help. Oh, the parties she'll have. 

Of course, there are times when Mommy really does have to fry up some pork chops and chop up some veggies by herself. And at these times, I wonder why we can't all have dinner at around 9:00 a.m., when the kids are relatively cheerful rather than just on the other side of the 5 a.m. meltdown/minor injury hour. Some days we simply muddle through dinner preparation, calming hysterics even while salting steamed green beans.

And fortunately, that which has provided an endless parade of ups and downs in its preparation also smooths all ailments. Dinner, for all of its hassle, finally comes to everyone's rescue in the end. 

Elise and the animals

Notice how they're tucked
under Elise's right arm: do
you think she's left-handed?

There's nothing much cuter in this world than seeing a 16-month-old gently kiss a shaggy pink bear and puppy and put them not-so-gently down for a little nap, whispering "shhh" to make sure they stay asleep. Or seeing her give the same bear and puppy a big squeeze if they fall off the couch, or hold them up so they can see the train passing by, feed them pretend food from a pretend spoon, or lick their noses or wake them up from their naps.

And that pretty much sums up the take-home message of this blog, unless you want to read about how we got to this point, which is as follows:

As I was preparing for Elise's arrival, I found myself scoping out stores for what I hoped would become her version of Lamby. I knew that:

1. For as much as you can say this about a stuffed animal, Lamby has been an amazing presence in Kalina's life. (In fact, so much so that Kalina doesn't sleep with Lamby anymore. No, Lamby sleeps carefully bathed and oh-so-sweetly tucked into the top bunk of her bunk bed, usually with a smaller animal friend of her own, and kissed at least once on the forehead. The bunk bed is pulled up directly next to Kalina's bed. It is a place of supreme honor.)

2. I wanted Elise to have the same opportunity.

3. There was little I could do to convince Elise to attach to the stuffed animal I carefully chose for her, instead of, say, a plastic shovel, but I could try. 

Do you think they're related?

As long as I was going to attempt this feat, and based on our experience with Lamby, I had a few criteria:

1. The animal must sit and lay down easily, with limbs that could be arranged somewhat by a child's hands (so, a stuffed fish was a no-go).

2. It must be readily replaceable--easy enough (and cheap enough) to buy a stunt-double a year down the road if Elise did decide to attach.

3. It must not be so small that it would be mistaken for a cat toy.

4. It must not be so large that it wouldn't fit in her arms.

5. It must be thoroughly soft and sweet. No stuffed pythons, please.

6. It must not make noise or do anything that required batteries, as I wanted Elise to be able to sleep with it without being woken up every time she shifted a bit.

7. It must not be another lamb.

8. Really, it shouldn't be white. But also not black, dark brown, anything boyish, any obnoxious print or anything except a sweet pastel. This left variations of pink, lavender and yellow.

I was amazed at how long it took to find this animal, but I did, shortly after Elise was born. And so, Pink Bear quietly entered our lives. Pink Bear remained relatively dormant and ignored in favor of a stuffed whale, a stuffed alligator, stuffed dogs and armfuls of Kalina's coveted stuffed toys until I deemed it was safe to add her to Elise's crib. 

At first, I decided to make an attempt (rather halfhearted, to be honest), to limit Pink Bear's movements to Elise's crib, so that it'd be one less stuffie for me to keep track of all over town. However, my hope that Elise would attach to the animal superseded convenience, as it often does, and now we drag Pink Bear everywhere. We do have a stunt double (thanks, Aunt Nancy!). We also have Puppy, who joined us on Christmas and has not left Pink Bear's side. He, too, has a stunt double, because it wasn't worth $5 not to acquire one.

And although Elise is actually willing to play with the occasional doll or human Little People figure (unlike Big Sister until she was about 3), the toddler is most assuredly an animal person. Is her affinity inborn, or is it instead due to the fact that anyone who has spent so many of her formative months with Kalina could only assume that life must be navigated with an animal tucked under an arm? Only time will tell.

But Elise's love for animals isn't limited to her two favorites. She gleefully trots across the room if she's pursued by a stuffed predator, such as Big Blue Horse. She protectively cradles tiny animals (often belonging to her sister) in her arms, shooting the evil eye to and scooting across the room from anyone (her sister) who looks like they might take them away. She knows exactly how to feed our pet cat and mice, and is generous in her helpings. And she'll actually wield a puppet rather than always requiring us to do it.

Kalina has dutifully taught Elise quite a repertoire of animal noises, which the littler one delights in. Her earliest included "woof" for dogs and the cutest little "ppffffhhh" for elephants (and giraffes, which she associates with elephants for some reason). Pink Bear, by the way, growls the cutest little growl. Elise still wows audiences with her animal sound skills for such a young age. 

Kalina has also taught the littler girl almost everything she knows about caring for stuffed animals, and in fact, it's rather impressive that for months now the younger girl has equated Pink Bear with Lamby. Whether it's piggyback rides or performing "The Wheels on the Bus," you can be sure that if Lamby is doing it, Pink Bear soon will be, too. Although this is exactly what I was going for, it took me by surprise.

Perhaps best of all, each girl is starting to recognize which animals are most important to the other. Kalina keeps track of Pink Bear and Puppy for Elise nearly as conscientiously as she does Lamby, or the kittens, or Costume Cow and her baby Farmyard Cow, or the penguin trio (Peep, Peep and Peep). After all, nothing is more important than keeping your animals close to you at all times. And for her part, Elise kindly returns any of Kalina's animals she's "borrowed" after a polite request for a trade (which we've been working really hard on) or tears, or simply after she's had a long enough turn.

And so, it looks like it's safe to say that cuteness will continue to abound in our household for the foreseeable future. Whew.