It's in the Motherhood Bylaws!

I find it absolutely ironic and somewhat blonde that I participated in last night's family events considering my good friend's recent blog. You'll have to go see "sofabellie" at the "my friend's blogs" on the right side. Recently Julie blogged about cooking with her two little girls. Well last night all three of my children magically remembered that Grace had gotten an Easy Bake oven for Christmas last year. After she got it for Christmas we had to try it out and I think we made a couple of things during the holiday break. But then I put it up in the pantry so that no one would be tempted to get it out and try to cook on their own. Maybe I'm a terrible mom but I just conveniently forgot that it was up there. Before you judge me remember back to the Easy Bake days of your yesteryear. You have to preheat that little light bulb inside for about 15 minutes before you start. Then it takes about 15 minutes for that little light bulb to cook anything. And do you remember what those little mixes tasted like? Well yesterday all three kids really wanted to get it down and make a Friday night desert. So being that it's in the Motherhood Bylaws that you must oblige children when they want to help in the kitchen because it stimulates their learning and is like quality family time or something - I put a smile on my face and got down the Easy Bake. All three kids lined up beside the counter top on three chairs. There was a little fussing on how close the boys were to Grace since she was going to do the actual baking. And then the boys had to push each other off their chairs at least once or twice before we could actually start cooking. So then with a smile that went from here to Connecticut Grace mixed up the little tiny packet of chocolate brownie mix and smeared it into the little tiny baking pan and then put it in the oven. She let Will set the timer for 12 minutes and then went to mixing the frosting. A little too much water accidentally went into the frosting so it kinda ended up like chocolate water. Then the awaited moment arrived and we took out the teenie weenie brownie only to decide that it was a little too crusty and too small to properly delight our family of five. So I went to the cupboard and pulled out a box of chocolate cake mix and we mixed that up with one less egg and a little more oil (so we didn't have a rising catastrophe in the Easy Bake). We then baked five little cakes one by one in the Easy Bake (although at this point I no longer think that "easy" deserves to be in the name). At 12 minutes per cake plus the couple minutes of "oooooh"ing and "aaaahhh"ing in between - it turned out to be a couple of hours of family fun. My little creative princess decided the cakes would be properly topped with a scoop of ice cream - and well - she was right! I spent two hours patiently and was rewarded with chocolate and ice cream. Friday fun!