Two Generations of Fresh Cookies and Patience

One of the fondest memories I have of my childhood is baking cookies with my mom. She was, and still is, the epitome of perfection in the kitchen. She would set my little sister Nancy on the counter as I stood on an old metal stool. While mom mixed the ingredients, my sister would crack the eggs as I poured the chocolate chips into the bowl. We’d sit in front of the oven door and wait. My mother would smile while pouring fresh farm milk into little juice glasses for my sister and me. We always got to lick the beaters, raw eggs and all, as we waited patiently for the perfect golden chocolate chip cookies to come out of the oven. They would be lined up on the counter resting on paper grocery bags, ready for my dad to arrive home from work and my big brother, David, to come home from school.

Fast forward, many years later, to a five-year old little girl and her two-year old brother, covered in raw egg, flour, and sugar. Screaming. Not just a little scream. The I-think-someone-is-getting-killed scream. Over a beater. And me, their 29-year old sleep-deprived and completely overwhelmed mom, trying to separate them. Cookie dough in Morgan’s hair, Benjamin’s glasses crooked and smeared with flour and egg, and a broken bowl on the floor. Burnt cookies that resembled hockey pucks. Patience flew out the window as I opened it to let the burnt cookie smell out of the kitchen. Happy memories were NOT being made that day. I looked at my children with their tear-stained faces and said, “I will never make cookies with you kids EVER AGAIN!” I needed patience.

My son and daughter are now 22 and 19. I baked cookies the other day, and as my son came into the kitchen and the smell of baked goods hit his nose, he asked, “What are you making?” I found this odd, as there was a KitchenAid on the counter surrounded by cookie sheets and a bowl of dough. Then I thought about it. I hadn’t made cookies with my kids in years. I never had patience with them in the kitchen. They baked while growing up, but not with me. Sadness washed over me as I wondered how the patience gene skipped me. I remembered watching my children baking bread and cookies with their grandma, from the time they were barely able to walk, right up until last Christmas. I called my mom and asked her how she had so much patience with two little girls in the kitchen all the time. My mom was the second of ten children in her family. There were so many kids in the house that she had to be patient. Having my sister and me in the kitchen was a breeze for her.

I thought about this for a while and realized that even though I was lacking in the patience department, my children still turned out alright. What I lacked in patience, I made up for in other areas of their lives. I was the mom who brought the treats to games, helped with science fair projects, and supported them in their sports. I lugged kids around before and after school, drove long hours to volleyball games, and sat through chilly football practices.

Though I didn’t produce a couple of culinary geniuses, my children learned other life lessons. To volunteer. Be kind to others and treat people how they would want to be treated themselves. As a mom, I have often wondered if I would’ve done something differently….if I had only done this instead of that….if I would’ve given them something I hadn’t. There are a million should of, would of, could of’s. But we are all different. Its okay that we all instill different values and bits of knowledge into our children.

My daughter is out on her own now. She calls once in a while for a recipe or to ask how long to bake something. She could look it up on Google, but she calls me. My son is leaving in less than a month for the Marines. I know he can heat up a pizza, warm up left overs, and use the microwave. He won’t starve. They’ve been taught the important things. They will figure out the rest. I brought a few dozen cookies over to my daughter’s apartment the other day. She was thrilled when she opened up the container and found warm chocolate chip cookies. Even more thrilled with the new cookie sheet and spatula. As my son took a bite of a warm cookie, he looked at me and said, “You did good, Mom.” As a mom, that’s all I need to make my heart happy.