Cooking Together

Since the great COVID shutdown of 2020 we've been trying to include the girls in meal prep and cooking as a way of spending time together while learning a valuable life skill. Bonus lessons included - how not to cut yourself on very sharp objects, burn yourself or blow the house up because you didn't check to make sure there was a flame when you turned the burner on. (This actually happened - not the blowing up part.)

Admittedly however, when the attempt to return to normal occurred the abundance of free time in our house vanished almost as quickly as it appeared... adjustment exhaustion, homework and activities have left us with little to no time or patience to do anything let alone cook together.

Recently both girls separately expressed an interest in cooking one meal a night during the week with me. I agreed to this as long as it was on a night where they did not have another commitment. Initially looking at their schedules it appeared to work perfectly and an added bonus was that they would each get their own personal time with me (A prized commodity in our house) because their free nights always fell on different nights.

In theory this was a great plan...

Did I mention homework?

You probably know how this story ends... Weeknight meal making together was a BUST and ended with mom continuing to be head chef while also trying to help with homework and manage the emotions that came along with it, both mine and theirs.

Thankfully we live in New England where cold, rainy and/or snowy days in the winter force you to want to stay inside, hibernate AND cook or bake! Winter for the win! Our weekends over the past few months especially have allowed us the time needed to cook some fun meals and even allowed us to experiment with some harder recipes. Though the girls haven't always received the one on one time they were hoping for they did get the gift of learning to work together without fighting!

The unfortunate side to all of this is that our girls are becoming old enough to cook things for themselves.... As amazing as that it is, it's also a reminder that time is passing and as they get older and more self sufficient we too get older and a little less needed. So maybe for the time being I'll continue to let them mix up baking soda and baking powder or measure things wrong just so I can spend a little extra time with them, helping them and talking with them while I still can.