Anthology for weekendwritein

Baking with a Child

                Brittney woke up to a sweet smell coming through the closed bedroom door. For a second she was wondering who was baking something but noticed quickly that her husband wasn't in bed. She threw the covers off her, climbed out of bed, and stumbled to to the door to see what was going on.

She found her husband and her daughter on the floor of the kitchen in a sea of baking pans and flour. Her husband was keeping a close eye on their daughter as she used a rolling pin to flatten out dough. A few moments went by before he noticed Brittney standing there.

"Hey, you're up. We've been baking sugar cookies this morning. Want some?" Jason asked.

"Maybe in a little bit. How long have you two been up?" Brittney asks making her way slowly towards the coffee pot careful not to slide on one of the pans.

Jason looks around for a clock then answered, "Couple hours. Alice wanted to bake something and we had the ingredients for sugar cookies so here we are."

Brittney pours herself some coffee and watches Alice and Jason cut out shapes from the flattened dough. They place them on the nearest pan until its full then Jason puts it in the oven. He gets back down on the floor across from Alice and says, "Let's get the next one going."

Alice reaches in a large plastic container and tosses more flour on the pan. The cloud of flour covers everything nearby in a white dust cloud. When the dust settles Alice begins rolling out another batch of cookie dough.

"Ok, so why are you two on the floor? Isn't that a little unsanitary?" Brittney asked.

"Well I didn't like the idea of a three year old balancing on a stool so we brought everything down here to make it easier. Letting Alice help bake requires a new way of doing things so we are using the pans to roll the dough on instead of using the counter top. Keeps everything off the actual floor," Jason explained.

Brittney saw a couple trays on the counter and noticed one was already decorated with icing. Moving closer she noticed they were a mess. All the icing had dripped off the side like it had melted.

"What happened here? These look like you just slapped something on and it melted. You can't even see the faces anymore," she asked.

"We got a little too impatient with wanting to decorate. We found out the cookies were way too hot and it just melted everything. So the pan next to it is cooling before we try again," Jason said while helping Alice smooth out the dough, "And Alice actually did the decorating."

Brittney looks at the cookies again then says, "Well I bet they were cute before they melted."

Jason laughed, "Uh huh. I do it and it's a mess. Alice does it and it's cute. Everyone's opinion changes when a kid's involved."