I decided to bake cookies one afternoon. My three-and-a-half-year-old son insisted on helping. I told him to go watch TV in the living room, but he refused. He dragged over a chair, climbed up, and stuck both hands straight into the flour bag.
By the time I noticed, flour covered the countertop. It dusted his sleeves, hair and eyebrows too. Proud of himself, he grabbed a handful and tossed it into the air. “Look, Mom! It’s snowing!”
Flour drifted everywhere — onto my freshly washed clothes, the floor, and his grinning face.
My first instinct was to shout, “Stop that!” The words were right on my tongue. But I watched him hold his hands up high, mimicking falling snowflakes, brimming with joy. I held back.
I grabbed another bowl, scooped in two spoons of flour, and said, “Go ahead and make your own.” He lit up. He stirred wildly, sending more flour flying. I worked on my own dough beside him, adding a little water for him now and then. What he made was nothing like proper dough. It was runny and spilled all over the counter.
We used two baking trays. One held my neatly shaped cookies. The other had his messy, gooey mixture. Once baked, his turned into lumpy, dark, crispy pieces. He took a bite and declared it delicious, then held one out for me to try. Parts were still doughy inside, and the burnt edges tasted bitter. I smiled and said it was good.
Cleaning up took forty minutes. I wiped down the counters, floor and sink, and washed both our flour-covered clothes.
That night, after he fell asleep, I sat on the sofa with a cup of tea, looking at the tidy kitchen. I thought: If I’d sent him away back then, the cookies would have been done faster and the room would have stayed clean. But we would have missed that wonderful afternoon together.
The next morning, I found a thin streak of flour on the side of the refrigerator that I had somehow missed. For a second, I reached for a cloth. Then I laughed and left it there.
Just for one more day.
