Our cooking adventures

Jadyn absolutely loves to help me cook. She likes to be involved in every step of the process and is very good about becing careful when I let her stir things and staying away from things that are hot (like the oven or stovetop). If she catches me puttering around in the kitchen without her then she will usually demand for me to put my project “On the floor! On the floor Mama!” so that she can see what I am doing. Well this morning she opened the drawer of pans under our oven, pulled out a skillet and said “Mama! Pancakes?” I haven’t made pancake for Jadyn in ages so I told her that of course we could make pancakes. I pulled out the bag of pancake batter and told her to go get a mixing bowl (which she did) then proceeded to hand her measured scoops of pancake batter, water, applesauce (these were going to be ‘fancy’), cinnamon, and egg. She had a blast dumping everything into the bowl for me. When it was time to mix all of the ingriedients together she shooed away my wooden spoon and asked for a fork, (well, why not?) I gave her one and let her try to mix for awhile. My patience for letting her mix is about 30 seconds long, at which point I have to take the bowl, give it a good beating and then pronounce that it is time to cook it.

Ooooohh goody. This is one of Jadyn’s favorite parts. I get her a chair and she climbs up to watch the entire process, occasionally snitiching from whatever might be on the counter near her (This can be a problem when it is a plate of last night’s chili). As a side note, Jadyn is VERY careful about things that are hot. She even freaks out if a shaft of sunlight falls across her, declaring it to be “Hot! Hot!”  I poured the batter into the hot skillet and then went to get a plate to hold the finished product. When I turned back around Jadyn was standing very still, with tears in her eyes. A creeping suspicion about her proximity to the hot burner came to mind as I asked her what was the matter. Blinking quickly she covered one of her fingers with the other hand and looking at me said “Mama…its hot!...its hot.” Oh poor girl! “Jadyn, did you touch the hot pan?” I asked her. Sniff sniff “Mama…hot.” She was so precious standing there, trying not to cry or make a big deal about her little burned finger because she knew she shouldn't have touched the pan. I checked her singed finger and then got out some blue aloe vera, poured it into one of those medicine cups and then gave it to her to stick her finger in. I kind of doubted that she would tolerate it for very long but to my surprise she kept her finger in that stuff for close to 30 minutes, occasionally pulling it out to check and see if it was still “hot.” We went on to make Pooh bear pancakes with the batter and strategically placed chocolate chips. I've got to figure out a way to make the other foods that I prepare as fun to help with because at the moment nothing is as fun as baked goods, and my house doesn't need anymore of those!