Last week, on a typical afternoon, I decided we needed to bake cookies. This is a task I enjoy, the kids can help with, and in the end we get to eat delicious treats. Not exactly a difficult sell.
The kids agreed to help, although this mostly meant my son wondering around waiting for the chocolate chips to go in so he can eat them help and my daughter stands on her stool and helps me dump ingredients into the mixer.
We did all of this, they scored their chocolate bits and I set to spoon them onto the tray and put them in the oven. Off they went to the playroom, I sat at the table waiting and smelling them cook while writing.
The kitchen smelled heavenly.
Then it smelled a little funny.
Eventually, after getting the kids drinks, chatting with them about something, writing some more, I realized “OH CRAP THE COOKIES!”.
If my life was a movie this would have been the part where the music turned dramatic and I went into slow-motion to run to the stove and open the oven door. They were more than done.
In the simple step of forgetting to turn out the timer for it’s usual 9 minutes (likely while I was stuffing my face with cookie dough from the bowl) I had completely gotten distracted. It’s been years since I’ve burnt a batch of cookies. I felt badly when I had to tell the kids the cookies didn’t make it (although my brave souls did want to try them anyway ‘just in case’. They both agreed they were a lost cause’) and frankly, I really wanted cookies!
The didn’t seem too bothered by it and went back to playing.
But the real kicker came when my son, after a little while (and well after my apologies) stood at the bottom of the stares and simply said “it’s okay about the cookies mom. It doesn’t matter how they look or taste. What matter is that we had fun making them”.
My. Heart.
So I guess it’s really okay to burn the cookies since the lesson is that the joy of the process and time together is far more valuable than the treat itself.
It’s a lesson I guess I needed to be reminded of.
