Encouraging a Tradition

My daughter, who is two years old, is now my regular, most dependable baking buddy. Baking has become one of those expected activities at our house as I enjoy the creative expression baking gives me and more importantly I love eating baked goods. There is nothing more exciting than waiting for a timer to expire, at which, warm, home-made baked goods are extracted from the hot oven where they metamorphosed in a matter of minutes. In the mean time, they also do a wonderful job making my house smell inviting and further fulfill the traditions and memories I intend to leave for my daughter.

My daughter is mastering a routine for both of us when we come to the kitchen with the intent to create yummy food. And, most usually, we are baking with the recipes handed down to me from my mother and to her from her mother.

You'll find us in the corner of my kitchen, both drawn to the location of my Kitchenaid. I pick her up and plop her on the counter, we read through the recipe together; she'll even grab it out of my hand and point to foreign words or numbers and pretend to read the ingredients aloud to me, pointing with her tiny pointer-finger at interesting words she thinks I'll pay particular attention to. I nod and encourage her determination to play her part.

We pull all of the ingredients out on to the counter. Flour, vanilla, cinnamon and the like, scatter and surround my daughter like a moat. All of which my daughter will stick her finger in and steal a taste. She always feels compelled to taste the flour, of which I know must be disgusting, but even my two year old's pride is strong and defiant as she emphatically communicates, "I like this. Nummy."

We begin dumping and measuring our ingredients. I fill the measuring cups and she dumps the ingredients in the Kitchenaid, mesmerized by its continual turning. Once the batter is prepared, combined, and mixed efficiently, our excitement is triggered. We pour our batter into the designated cupcake pan, pie dish, bread pan, whatever, and slide it graciously into a preheated oven. Both my daughter and I wait impatiently for the timer to ding and for our hopes to be realized. We frequently make our way back to the oven, turn the light on, check on the baking "nummy" and agree that we are excited to eat what we have just created.

These moments happen about once a week in my tiny kitchen. My daughter and I come together, even calling a truce on certain days, in order to create something from Nummy flour. We work together, communicate, and create. These moments are hours that I'm living in the present and enjoying my daughter for the young lady she is quickly becoming. I'm not fretting over the coming Monday 'to-do' list, or the unfolded laundry. I'm simply creating with my daughter and encouraging a tradition, in hopes that one day, she and her daughter will spend similar moments in the nook of her kitchen, gathered around the Kitchenaid.