Cooking with Toddlers
How fun is it when your babies start getting big enough to "help" you cook? Pretty darn fun! Yesterday Baby Girl and I decided that her new pretty pasta that is shaped like flowers would be a good thing to cook for dinner for her and her brother. (Wife and I were having barbecued steak!) "Me help cook," says the girl, grabbing the stool so she could climb up on the counter. I helped her up, sat her on the counter and got out the new box of pasta.

"Do you want some of these before they are cooked?" I asked. Of course, she did. So, I gave her a few to play with and she put them into her new Dora and Diego paper bowls. I went about my business of filling a pan with water, turning on the stove, getting out salad makings while the water was getting hot, and finally put the pasta into the boiling water.

"Mine too." Baby Girl hands me her bowl.

"You want me to cook your pasta in my pan?"

"No, cook in bowl." Apparently she thought the Dora bowl would make good cookware.

"No, we can't cook in this bowl. We have to use Mama's pan, but you can eat them out of your bowl when they are cooked."

That made her happy, and we didn't even run through the nearly endless session of "Why?" that has become a regular part of our routine.

It was simple. No big deal, but fun - just me and my daughter cooking together. Wow. I've hardly ever called her my "daughter." She's always been "the baby." She must be growing up. That's somehow happy and sad all at the same time. She is becoming such a fun-loving character, and I do mean "character." Hard to believe not long ago she was a clingly, shy introvert. Ah, she is coming into her own.