Mother’s little helper
“Cookie Baking Mum” is not one of the handles I imagined myself adopting. Somewhere between a desire to avoid excessive refined sugar in my family’s diet and a judgmental snarl at behaviours reminiscent of June Cleaver, I have stubbornly avoided having “Baker” become part of my Mummy tool-box.
But there was a time, back in my senior years of high school when baking chocolate chip cookies on Friday afternoon was nearly the highlight of the week. With the Beatles blaring, my best friend and I would brush off the week of typical high school shenanigans, homework, anxiety about the big unknown — The Future — not with a drinking binge, but baking. We didn’t even eat many of the cookies as I recall — they most often ended up in the greedy hands of brothers and cousins living on campus at our local university. But it was the acts of measuring, sifting, spilling, spooning and laughing off the week’s events which made it almost medicinal. True, the occasional sample of cookie dough or chocolate chips probably helped improve the mood too, but it was the ritual which buoyed us the most.
I know I’m all about “getting it right” — whatever that might mean on a given day. I admit to stressing and straining over most of the challenges I face in dealing with my now 2 and 4 year old. I am honestly convinced that there is a “best way” for dealing with stuff when I can clearly see the context - how I’m feeling, how they’re feeling, what we’re each needing physically or spiritually from a given situation. I’m constantly asking myself - what is this really about?
But today was a day when all I could say to the Spirits who guide me was “I surrender!” It started with my 4 year old telling me at 6:14 a.m. that she’d wet the bed because she didn’t get up in time to use the toilet. Terrific. Then my 2 year old who uses the toilet “perfectly” when coached with the precision of a boot camp drill, moved his very soft bowels in his cloth diaper leaving me with a big mess moments before departing for Kate’s day-camp drop off. (He’s lulled me into believing that I was past the days of dirty diapers by using the toilet for the past few months, but I’ve given up the drill thus putting him back in diapers hoping he’d remember the yucky feeling of “wet”. No suck luck, Mum). All this and it was not yet 9 a.m..
I moved through the morning trying to avoid talking to anyone, feeling that gut wrenching ache which reminded me not so subtly that I’d signed up for this. Fine, I thought to myself, just let it go. Then it hit me. I need to make chocolate chip cookies. Damn the sugar high my kids will ride out this afternoon when I want them to nap — get out the recipe and turn on the TV for the boy.
As I tucked into measuring the ingredients I was once again soothed by the familiarity of the process, the taste of the sugary butter mixture and snicking the endorphin inducing chocolate chips. I’m not even a big chocolate person — but the effect is undeniable. I was already in a better mood before the first dollop of dough hit the pan.
So call it my own lazy day when I was willing to ignore the bigger picture, swallow my frustration and “settle” for what must be the real secret behind the stereotype of a Cookie Baking Mum: baking just makes everyone feel better. I’ll try to remember that next time I’ve spent too much time agonizing over why my son still calls out for milk at 2 a.m. when there has been none to be found for many, many months. And that could be tomorrow.