Little Chef

I keep taking these children's cookbooks out of the library. I mean, who can resist? I pick one up and I get images of me cooking quietly with my boys, preparing food together, and then sitting down together for a meal my boys are proud of and then eat.

I never learn.

In fact, the boys get pretty excited when they get to choose what they want to cook. And each boy remains enthusiastic up until five minutes into the process. At this point I realize it's going to take a LOT longer to make dinner than usual, and I begin to feel rushed. Then, as I am instructing Nick on how much cheese we need (half a cup, the one slash two, it has a green circle on it) Andy comes jogging into the kitchen in only a diaper, which obviously needs changing. While I quickly try to clean up the two-year-old, I shout instructions out to Nick. "Put it in the bowl, and then measure out the other kind of cheese."

When I come back out, I find that Nick has ignored the bowl I placed out for him, and instead mixed the cheese in with the yeast, which he was NOT supposed to do. Also, when I said used the measuring cup, I was not specific. He used it, but it was only about a third full.

Nate will refuse to touch the chicken he chose to cook. Nick will insist on cracking the egg but will miss the bowl. Twice.

And then. And THEN. And then And Then AND THEN...

The stupid rolls will take twice as long to cook. The chicken breading will stick to the pan, even though the book said they wouldn't. I will end up shuffling through the cookbook, trying to figure out what I missed. The boys will be watching TV. I will be struggling to follow the directions in The Toddler Cookbook.

So... cookbooks lie. If your kids won't help you cook normally, a cookbook of smiling children will not change that. And the pizzas may be made into smiley faces, but really the food is just as complicated to make. Even more so, because you have to deal with your kids at the same time.