There are certain things kids are not inclined to do. Buy a time share, turn off light switches, or acquire the art of conventional cooking. My cutie pie dear of a daughter abides by her own rules of steering clear of doing anything in the kitchen that requires more than two minutes of her time.
This is the same child that mutated from being spoon fed, to holding a spoon while standing in front of our wide open refrigerator door diving into containers scooping whatever looked satisfying, as long as she didn’t have to steam it, saute’ it, or simmer it.
Her older sister asked me one day, “Why can’t she make meals?”…giving me a malevolent stare as if I lacked horribly in the basics provided by HER former chief cook and bottle washer, mathematics navigator, cleaning instigator, and lice eliminator. I’m God driven, but I can’t walk on water or turn my teen into Paula Dean, the kitchen queen!
My youngest offspring relied on MacDonald’s and me if she were to eat throughout the time the earth rotated on its axis. I wanted to gift my green eyed girl with a Pictionary on utensils and ask her, “Let’s make a deal,” showing her that behind cupboard door number one were spices, door number two was a cookbook, and door number three led outside and was lockable if she couldn’t manage to cook something without foul smells emanating from our eating area.
Abiding by my teenage cuddlebunny’s Velveeta standard of living, it reminded me that I had already slaved over bubbly water with shell macaroni for a good portion of fourteen years, six months, eleven days, and seven minutes, keeping me from doing anything else. Not that I’m keeping track.
With a minuscule amount of culinary curiosity, little ladylove thinks life is a many blendered thing. She couldn’t tell a mixer from a melon baller. So it was rather surprising to see her one day whipping up a batch of cookies in a mixer, with a melon baller. I love batter, but my higher standards kept me from eating it off the floor. I congratulated her on knowing how to turn the oven on and only setting off the smoke alarms twice. Her attempts at dinner delivery went about as well as the Hindenburg’s final journey. I would hate to become the recipient of stomach pumping just because miss adorable replaced baking soda with the ant killing powder that I often leave out on the counter by mistake. I already had a loaded list of things to worry about other than to wonder whether I’d be snuffed out from dining at my own table.
My blossoming buttercup’s idea of foreign cuisine would be Froot Loops Frittata, which could be punishable by torture in Italy. I understood that things could get a bit boggy in her tender world, so dropping a moving mixer sending cake batter shrapnel to the walls for redecoration in chocolate didn’t exactly help. And I had to remind her that if she wanted to make those Rice Krispies treats today, she would have to actually get out of bed to go buy the ingredients, which could very well be by June. By the time my persnickety princess got around to mixing the treat, rice went flying my way as well, showering me like a new bride. Incessant toil made her whine and beg me to make the snack instead. I wanted to go to medical school just to learn how to pinch a trachea.
I would say I’m one of the most non-retardant persons parenting. My sweet fire starter on the other hand usually walks away from a kitchen with singed hair and a smoking new hair do. A bit of genius though on her part to get those gorgeously flexed firemen over to our house. After the first attempt at meal preparation, I told her that gobfuls is not measurement terminology. She made enough to feed the state of Vermont. After the second attempt, we could have used her pork chops for paper weights when she turned the oven a few degrees shy of disintegration. After the thirteenth attempt, I told her to go with something more stimulating like dusting off the spider webs in her room so the little critters could breathe properly. And consider investing in a Denny’s franchise.
Dinners weren’t a total flop. The pre-made fruit punch from a store bought carton was passable.