Sometimes your dreams come true and you don't even realize at first what's going on, because real life looks different from your dream and takes more patience. (This is surprising and a little disconcerting when you never realized before having kids how impatient you actually were.)
I love baking, and growing up I always thought that if I had a daughter, one of the most fun things I could do would be to teach her how to bake. I guess I pictured that maybe she would be about six or seven years old, and we would talk about cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons, and she would measure out flour, sugar, salt, molasses, cinnamon, etc., and I would show her how to use my KitchenAid mixer and the finer points of each of its attachments. It was always very formal in my mind. I don't know why; maybe it's because I'm an idealist, and experiences are always wrapped up in nice, neat, perfect packages in my imagination.
About a month ago (three and a half years earlier than in my mind), Alexandra decided she wanted to help me in the kitchen. And I realized that teaching her, passing on life skills, probably wasn't going to be about formal teaching much of the time. It was going to be about spending time with her and enjoying letting her do things with me. (The enjoyment is important, because who wants to work/learn with a cranky, impatient parent?)
Baking with Alexandra is slow. It's slow because I have to drag a chair over to let her stand on to wash her hands, and also to work at the counter. It's slow because she can't measure things out yet; I measure ingredients and let her dump them in the bowl. If it's a liquid ingredient, I usually have to help her pour it in, either because it's heavy enough that she can't quite lift it on her own, or because she doesn't yet know how to pour liquid at a speed where it won't just dribble down its original container or splash out of the bowl and make a huge mess. It's slow because I have to watch her carefully and correct some of the things she wants to do ("No, we can't put the mixed dry ingredients back in the sugar bag." "We only need to crack two eggs, not three." "No, we shouldn't shake all the milk off the whisk when we're done using it."). It's slow because since she's only two-and-a-half years old, I don't let her use the sharp utensils and I need to make sure she's paying attention and not going to fall off the chair. And even though she can recite all the dangers of a hot stove-top to me, of course I watch her like a hawk when she's stirring a simmering pot.
Also I don't like cleaning up large messes. So it's slow because I'm trying to help her learn to be neat along the way... Just being honest.
But last night, we made cinnamon-raisin bread together. We went slowly, and I gave her many little tasks that she could handle on her own, and helped her with other tasks that took a little more finesse. I didn't worry about how slow we were going and how there was going to be more of mess than usual to clean up at the end. My little girl wanted to help me bake, and as we worked together, I realized that I was living my dream: Bit by bit, just by being myself and her being herself and letting her help me in any way she can, I am passing on life skills to my child.
And probably the most rewarding thing was when we were done and she was in bed, Ian said to me, "You should have seen her face. She was so happy to be helping Mommy make cinnamon-raisin bread."
I hadn't been looking at her face, because I was watching her hands and the recipe and my own hands. But that comment, added to the obvious pride she felt this morning when we pulled the bread out of the oven and she ate a breakfast that she helped make with her own two hands, confirmed that whenever it's possible, I should most definitely slow down and let my little girl help me.
