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.