Friday, October 03, 2008

Baker's Initiation or When Dad's Not Here

Sophie likes to stand up on a chair while I'm in the kitchen and watch what I'm doing as she grabs things from the counter and makes twice the mess to clean up later. Today we made Pumpkin Cheesecake Swirl Brownies. (Um... if you like pumpkin and chocolate together, you have to go make these right now. Seriously.)
Steve and I are usually pretty strict about not giving Sophie a lot of sweets and junk food. Until today, I'd never given her a spatula from something I've been baking. I figure eventually I had to start. What kind of childhood would she have if she never got to lick spatulas*? This spatula happened to be covered in brownie batter. Below you can see the progression from complete bliss to total devastation when I tried to take it away from her. The third look down on the left almost made me give in and let her make a complete mess of herself. Almost.




A few tears, a clean shirt, and an extra big package of paper towels later, she forgot all about it. Easy to upset. (mostly) Easy to please.

*Yes, there were raw eggs in the batter. Honestly, I'm not worried. If there was a real danger from eating raw cookie dough and batter, I'd probably be dead by now from how much I've eaten in my life.

8 comments:

The Rogers said...

So cute!!! and YES every kid needs to have a childhood of licking the spoon.
I love the pics she is so darn cute even when she is crying.

Dave & Chels said...

I feel the same way about batter - you gotta let them live! You capture some great facial expressions on that girl. I especially loved the ones you got while you were in Idaho & she wanted the camera. Talk about determined! She is growing up so fast - and she looks like a little firecracker. Dave is constantly telling me I am going to have to be on my toes for B in the future - it looks like you will too. At this rate, at least! :)

Kathryn said...

LOL! That is so cute.

Cassia said...

Natalie, I love the picture progression--I love how it captures not just a moment, but an experience. :)

Not to be devil's advocate, but on the raw eggs--it's one of those cases where most eggs are perfectly fine, but there are a few that just naturally have salmonella in them. Hence the recommendation to not have raw egg products--the danger is "real," but rare. :) But raw dough is so good... to get around that, I remember my sister making cookie dough sans eggs just for eating. :)

That said, I didn't swear off deli meats when I was pregnant, and that's pretty much the same case. :)

Natalie said...

Ya, I know there's a slight risk. And ironically, I'll eat a bowl full of raw-egg-laden cookie dough, but I won't touch a runny yolk in an egg overeasy. Ugh.

I didn't swear off deli meat either, but I only ate it if it was heated.

Danica said...

She is as cute as a button! I'm right there with you on the cookie dough YUM!

Cassia said...

Yeah--I definitely don't do runny yokes, either. Yuck! :) (My husband, on the other hand, isn't quite so picky.) :)

Millertime said...

I love those faces. She is such a sweet girl. I just love it when they want to be with you in the kitchen. Lydia's favorite is to help me do the dishes. She takes everything out of the dishwasher while I try to load it. It makes cleaning your kitchen twice as long but I would not have it any other way.