What used to be and what is

Starting in grade school, I would bake if I needed to relax.  It was calming.  I like comfort food, but I like it even more when I make it then eat it.  I always seemed to be in better spirits and just a certain peace starting to creep in as I worked.

When I was going to bed last night, I decided today was going to be a jammie day.  Just hanging out.  Going nowhere.

I knew I was going to be watching a friend's 2.5 year old.  She is 4 months younger than Obsidian.  Size wise, she is his polar opposite.  Personality wise, they are very similar.  It is hilarious to watch them play together when things are going well.

After B got here, I decided that today was the day that I was going to make Jet his peanut butter cookies with a kiss in the middle.  I was supposed to for his birthday but kind of sort of forgot to pick up peanut butter, so he had sugar cookies.  That was over a month ago.  I decided I would really like some chocolate chip cookies.  I always bake my gluten free stuff before I start in on the gluten stuff to minimize my risk of getting wheat into my stuff.  So we (being Pyrope, Obsidian, B, and I) make the chocolate chip ones.  Then I decide that they are not going to wait or be patient long enough to make the peanut butter, so I pull out a package of break apart snickerdoodle cookies and tell them to pull them apart.  The did, then proceeded to eat a good portion of the dough.  And we baked them.  And they ate more of the baked ones.  As the peanut butter cookies were baking, the three of them unwrapped the kisses to put on them.  Then Obsidian got out his scissors so he could cut the foil into "snowflakes".  We needed a significantly larger number of Kisses to be unwrapped than we had peanut butter cookies.  No one ate a decent lunch.  To be honest, I didn't bother to try very much.  During Obsidian's nap, Pyrope helped me clean the kitchen.  It should have taken me a fair amount of time to clean it.  It took a rather good amount of time. 

At bedtime tonight, Pyrope says:
"Thank you God for messes.  They mean you had fun.  And chocolate.  And a really good lunch.  I clean the messes too.  Almost by myself.  But it is more fun to have Mommy be a big helper.  I so proud of her."

I think I have to agree, "messes" can mean a lot of fun.  I didn't get any feelings of calm, or peace.  But it was fun.