Making Cookies with The Girls
La Nina, Maggie and I made cookies for Valentine's gifts over the past couple of days. There is nothing quite like making cookies with a 3 year old. It is fun and frustrating all at once. Making Chocolate Chip Cookies is easy; I measure the ingrediants, La Nina dumps the ingrediants in a bowl, I mix, La Nina licks the beaters while I put the cookies on a pan for baking. Easy. The challenge is baking sugar cookies with an almost 3 year old.
For Valentine's, I found these heart cookie cutter and festive decorations at my favorite store, Target. Yesterday, I strategically planned our baking to coincide with Maggie's nap. I dreamed up a simple system: I rolled the dough and La Nina cut the dough into hearts. Sounds like a good system, but dough maximization doesn't occur to a 3 year old. La Nina regularly ignored my advice to start on the edge and would plop her cookie cutter into the middle of the dough. Then she would pick it up, move it a 1/4 of an inch and cut again and again and again, ruining the majority of the roll. I tried and tried to guide her, but she repeated her cutting technique joyfully ignoring me. Eventually, I resorted to a Seinfeld-esque "Serenity now", and allowed her to have fun. I don't know how many times I rerolled dough needlessly, but this was supposed to be fun, right?
After baking a couple dozen sugar yesterday, today we decorated our Valentine's for gifts. Again, always an adventure with La Nina and today we had Maggie's help. The system I envisioned was I frost, La Nina spreads the sprinkles. La Nina had other ideas. La Nina wanted to spread frosting. Then, Maggie was to decorate. It is safe to say that Maggie ate more frosting than La Nina spread on the cookies and the majority of the decorations are on my kitchen floor. I tried to control Maggie, but she was grunting in joy as she sucked the frosting off of cookies and dumped sprinkles on the floor. I don't know how much frosting Maggie ate, before I stopped the sugar madness by putting the frosting away. We did get enough cookies decorated to deliver to Grandparents as gifts, but the kitchen paid the price.
In the end, the kitchen floor was licked clean by Pete (the dog) and the counters were easily wiped down. So, the mess didn't matter. Cookie baking is the one craft La Nina always enjoys. And Lord knows, Maggie likes anything that involves sugar. Happy Valentine's Day!
For Valentine's, I found these heart cookie cutter and festive decorations at my favorite store, Target. Yesterday, I strategically planned our baking to coincide with Maggie's nap. I dreamed up a simple system: I rolled the dough and La Nina cut the dough into hearts. Sounds like a good system, but dough maximization doesn't occur to a 3 year old. La Nina regularly ignored my advice to start on the edge and would plop her cookie cutter into the middle of the dough. Then she would pick it up, move it a 1/4 of an inch and cut again and again and again, ruining the majority of the roll. I tried and tried to guide her, but she repeated her cutting technique joyfully ignoring me. Eventually, I resorted to a Seinfeld-esque "Serenity now", and allowed her to have fun. I don't know how many times I rerolled dough needlessly, but this was supposed to be fun, right?
After baking a couple dozen sugar yesterday, today we decorated our Valentine's for gifts. Again, always an adventure with La Nina and today we had Maggie's help. The system I envisioned was I frost, La Nina spreads the sprinkles. La Nina had other ideas. La Nina wanted to spread frosting. Then, Maggie was to decorate. It is safe to say that Maggie ate more frosting than La Nina spread on the cookies and the majority of the decorations are on my kitchen floor. I tried to control Maggie, but she was grunting in joy as she sucked the frosting off of cookies and dumped sprinkles on the floor. I don't know how much frosting Maggie ate, before I stopped the sugar madness by putting the frosting away. We did get enough cookies decorated to deliver to Grandparents as gifts, but the kitchen paid the price.
In the end, the kitchen floor was licked clean by Pete (the dog) and the counters were easily wiped down. So, the mess didn't matter. Cookie baking is the one craft La Nina always enjoys. And Lord knows, Maggie likes anything that involves sugar. Happy Valentine's Day!
posted by One Lucky Mom @ 8:34 PM
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