Gametes In Love

Well, we kind of missed the boat on making Christmas cookies before, well… Christmas. So instead we made New Year’s cookies. Making dough was a bit more than I wanted to handle with two toddlers, so we opted for the easy approach: store bought cookie dough.

S and K had a fabulous time rolling out dough and stamping it with cookie cutters.

In the end the cookies didn’t really look like the shapes they came from. Really they looked like big sugar blobs. Also they tasted pretty bad, which, to be honest was a good thing. They made their way to the trash in the end, vs. my belly (and later my thighs). We had a great time though, and this has sparked a whole new Mommy/G cooking duo. We’ve since made pancakes (a breakfast win) and pizza (also a win).

Here are some pics from our cookie makin’ adventure. Yes, the background looks like a mess, but I needed to get the counters cleaned up from the reach of toddler fingers. Knives and 2 year olds don’t really mix ya’ know.

The sous chefs

Cookie stamping is serious business

We kinda had to teach them that you couldn’t just lift the cookie cutter and push it down over the same spot all over again.

K, hard at work

So this is a rolling pin, eh?

This is the face of a girl who’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. Or her eye-brows 🙂

What? Do I have something on my face?

Our cookies. Or cookie blobs.

Enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Cookie making time was promptly followed by two toddlers who ran circles around our house. I’m really not kidding. From the living room, through the kitchen, into the dining room, then back in the living room. And round and round it went. Note to self: next batch of cookies is getting baked in the morning 🙂

G got a play-kitchen for his birthday (amongst a TON of other loot. Seriously, kid is set-up for the rest of his life with toys). He LOVES this thing. Honestly, he’s spent every waking moment at home, since Saturday, at the side of the kitchen. He makes me tea, washes all of his kitchen equipment (by trying to jam it all in his little sink), and uses his utensils as projectiles (note to self: a kiddie play fork flying across the room, still hurts).

One side effect of this new toy? G wants to expand his culinary skills to bigger and more advanced pastures.

Yesterday evening he figured out how to turn on our oven. We have already knobbed up our burners, but our oven requires a minimum of 2 button presses in a specific combination to turn on. Buttons that are on opposite ends of the panel, mind you. I felt “safe” that he wasn’t going to figure it out. And he hadn’t. Until last night. Joy!

Luckily, Kitchenaid is on top of toddler curiosity, and has put a lock on the panel. We just discovered it last night. Now G is locked out of the oven baking for a while. Unfortunately, I think, so is anyone else who comes to our house and needs to cook (sorry Mom!). I genuinely think that safety gear locks out adults more than kids, but hey… at least no fires or gas alarms will go off in my home in the near future. I hope.

You know what? Childproofing kitchen cabinets is much easier said than done. Either the childproof locks we have aren’t very good — or our cabinets are especially made for parental torture.

S had to get creative in locking 3 of our cabinets (the ones that contain things like mandolyns and like sharp objects), but we have a few drawers that are out of the childproofing rhealm. The one with the pots I can handle: I mean how much trouble can G get in with a pot? Unless he decides to go hunting rabbit in the backyard by hitting it over the head with a pan, there’s not much I can complain about. The spice drawer on the other hand? Not my favorite child-toy.

Not only does G LOOOVE the spice rack, but he has learned to unscrew the tops off the little spice jars. I came into the kitchen today (where S was making dinner and G was “helping”) to find all my whole cloves on the floor. G was proudly standing over them. I guess he was getting ready to make a brine? I took a deep sigh and moved on. G then decided to gather up the cloves and throw them in the trash. Well, after the floor soup, I wasn’t going to use them again so I suppose he was kind of assisting with disposal.

THEN he decided to help me clean up. He stole the broom from me and brushed all the cloves under a cabinet I can’t reach anymore.

I guess our vacuum cleaner will be smelling pretty.