Month: December 2018

My younger daughter loves to bake. She loves to watch videos of people baking and decorating. She loves watching kids baking on TV. I indulge her by getting her cookbooks and aprons, and decorating tips, but secretly I kind of dread the implications.

I get mild panic attacks when out of the blue, she plops her latest cookbook in front of me, and says, “hey mom, let’s make this.” Do we have ingredients, equipment, time?! I often feel exhausted before we even begin. But there’s the time when all good parents have to suck it up and actually make good on the follow through. If I’m going to be buying her a cookbook, I guess I better be prepared to actually help her make some goods.

I talked her down from macarons to pretzels. Have you ever made pretzels? Not a drop cookie easy type of thing. But after talking my naysaying hamster brain down, I gave in and said yes to pretzels.

And you know what? Those damn pretzels were amazingly delicious. Soft, salty delicious. Carb-loadingly delicious. I said yes, and I don’t even remember what I pushed out of my “schedule” to make it happen (’cause, you know, pretzels are a process!).  But I do remember the pretzels, and how proud my gal and I were that we made them.

In which, I learn crazy ideas are actually sometimes good ideas, and time is relative.

The younger kids in the neighbourhood had a gift exchange project this year called Secret Penguin, whereby they were given a person’s name and list of their favourite things. The idea was to make a gift or re-gift something you had at home but no longer wanted.

My gal is going through a slight hording phase. So, the idea of giving anything of hers away was unthinkable. But, you know, what could be easier for a ten year than to crank out a hand sewn stuffed animal, in the shape of a wolf, in a day? Especially if you searched the Internet and found a super awesome pattern you’re sure you would have no problem following even though you’ve never completed any sewing projects ever before?

Or better yet, what could be easier than looking pathetic enough that your mom takes pity on you and takes over your project and hacks out a dolphin (not wolf) stuffie in a couple of hours, ’cause, you know, she does that kind of stuff ALL the time (NOT).

Easy. Actually, it was. Dammit.