Cookies, Anyone?

Have you ever had a great idea? Have you ever acted on it? Have you ever seen a good mental health provider? I can answer "Yes" to the first two and "No" to the last.

I picked the granddaughters up from school today. Our plan was for them to make Christmas cookies for their teachers. We used a sugar cookie recipe and planned to make "Gingerbread Boys". I bought the colored icings in piping tubes. What a great idea! That'll certainly make things easier for little hands.

We arrived home and quickly washed our hands. I got out the bowls and melted the butter. Emma was excited to be the one to crack the egg into the bowl. After I fished out the pieces of shell, she took the fork and beat the h***, oops, beat the heck out of that egg. Maggie dumped, er - poured the melted butter into the bowl and onto the table. Oh, well, a paper towel will clean that right up! I gave Maggie the tablespoon measurer and showed her how to measure a tablespoon of flour by getting a spoonful and taking a table knife and scraping it across the measurer to make sure it's only a tablespoon. She did fairly well - putting the required two tablespoons of flour in the bowl, where Emma was still beating that poor egg.

I cut open the sugar-cookie mix package and they both helped me dump, er, ah, pour it into the bowl with the dead egg and the floury butter. While I was getting the dough ready, I glanced over and saw that Maggie had taken the knife and was stirring the canister of flour. Flour was puffing up out of the container and quickly making a nice snow scene on the table. After putting the canister of flour away, we continued.

I showed them how to roll out the dough. First, it was Maggie's turn to do the rolling. Emma was waiting patiently on the sidelines with the cookie cutter. It took several tries, but Maggie finally got the dough spread out. Emma was a pro at cutting out the shapes. After transferring those cookies to the pan, we had a lot of fun balling up the leftovers to make a new ball to flatten with the rolling pin. Emma was the rolling pin person this time and Maggie was wielding the cutters. I could tell that Maggie was losing interest in this project. She was more interested in squishing the leftover dough in her hand. Emma was still with me. She was very busy rolling out the dough; but now the dough was too thinly rolled out. We had to scrape it off the cutting board and start over.

We finally managed to get the first two pans into the oven. After rolling out the next batch and cutting a few shapes out, Maggie wanted to know if she could go up and play "Noggin" on the computer. "What about the cookies?" I asked. "I'm done" she said. She washed her hands and disappeared upstairs. "What about you, Emma?" I asked. "I'm having fun!" she replied, as she continued to cut out gingerbread boys. "We don't need her."

When the cookies came out of the oven and were finally cool enough for the icing, I called Maggie back downstairs. We opened the tubes of icing, screwed on the decorating tips and sat down to decorate the cookies. Squeeze. Squeeze harder. Really squeeze! Oh, no. The tubes of icing were too hard for little hands to squeeze. Great! We ended up using a knife to smear icing on the cookies and I used the tubes to add mouths and eyes. They had a great time putting the little candy buttons the cookies. Well, anyway, Emma did. Maggie ate most of hers. Except for the one cookie she made for her teacher. It had about 20 little candies on it. Then she washed her hands again and headed back upstairs for another round of "Noggin". Emma, the trouper, stayed with me and really enjoyed decorating her cookies.

After the icing dried, I wrapped each one in Saran wrap and tied it with ribbon. Emma would have helped me with that, but she was too busy eating the rest of the icing. I cleaned up the table, the bowls, the spoons, the knives, the floor, the chair seats, my shirt, and Emma's elbow ("Look, Nanny, I decorated myself!!!).

Nothing left but the memories. And a few candies I crunched on the floor while cooking dinner. And a spot of dried purple icing I found on my shirt when I went to band practice. And a gingerbread boy arm (or leg) I found under the table.