Breaking Eggs

I spent my entire evening last night baking with my daughter. We were making cakes for her Halloween party.... and it was the best time we've spent together - ever.

After accepting the fact that there was no way I could manage to get done the amount of baking I needed to do if I waited until after the kids were bed, I just decided to devote the entire night to making the baking a "family" project.

I'm so glad I did.

Even though baking with a toddler means every step of the process is going to take longer, we had all the time in the world. After mixing the first cake and popping it in the oven, we had time to clean our tools, ever-so-slowly and carefully add all the ingredients for the next one and get it ready to go in. There was plenty of time to get it all done.

In fact, we had enough time to prepare the next cake and the 3 dozen cupecakes to go in.

Measuring, pouring in, mixing, coloring, stirring, scraping out the bowl into the pan.... I let her do it all.

She loved every minute of it.

Especially breaking the eggs. It took her until the 8th or 9th egg to really get the hang of opening an egg instead of just crushing it in her hand after cracking it. She never lost interest in our activities all night. The look of concentration on her face was priceless - and I was impressed with how well we did (with the exception of one.... but I'm pretty sure I got all the shells out from that early disaster!).

I put her to bed after probably the most satisfying evening with her that I can remember. Not once did she whine or stomp or cry for a thing. But why should she? She had my undivided attention all night... and we were doing something together. (Well isn't that a bit of a wake-up call?)

I loved every minute of it too.

It made me see my daughter in a different light - brought to the fore the fact that she's not a baby anymore, this little girl of mine. I've been underestimating her. She's smart. And capable of so much more than I've been offering her.

I can't wait for the evenings to come.....