It wasn’t art. And it wasn’t French. And we didn’t master it. But we’re getting closer.

The other week, after feeling like a bad mom for constantly telling Number 4 that she couldn’t help me in the kitchen,

and to “Just get out!”,

I wrote this post.

It took some motivation,

but two nights ago,

Number 4 and I had our first night making dinner together.

I read a memoir a few years ago by Jeanette Walls, called The Glass Castle.

The author had a seriously unconventional childhood, and I remember this one passage where she described how she cooked herself macaroni and cheese,

stirring the boiling water on the stove all alone.

She was three.

That’s a little young for my liking.

Sunday night I was going to barbeque some chicken and burgers, and make 2 different pasta salads for dinner.

I thought back to that passage in the Glass Castle.

I figured I’d let Number 4 give it a go with the pasta salad.

She’ll be seven in a month.

Why not teach her how to safely use the stove?

I filled a pot up with water, gave Number 4 a little salt to add in, and we waited for the water to boil.

Once it was boiling, I showed her how to pour in the box of pasta,

carefully,

without splashing scalding water all over the place.

She did great.

Then,

I told her she could stir the pasta every once in a while.

I showed her how to hold the spoon.

I showed her how to carefully stir.

The steam coming off the pot made her a little nervous.

I showed her how to to hold her arm and stir so the steam wouldn’t bother her.

She did great with that too.

Until,

in a moment of true-to-form Number 4 spazziness,

she freaked out,

flicked the spoon in just the right way,

and splashed boiling water on her leg.

Menu,

check.

Pasta,

check.

Third degree burn on Number 4’s thigh,

check.

So we took care of the burn.

I tried to keep my patience in check.

In the next 2 minutes,

she had squirted half a bottle of salad dressing on the floor.

This mother/daughter cooking and bonding thing wasn’t exactly going the way I had envisioned it.

It took all my energy and self-restraint not to bag the whole thing, and tell her we’d try again when she was,

like,

fourteen.

I changed the plan.

We’d scale it back a little.

I sent her outside to pick some tomatoes.

Then she washed them off.

After that, she was required to keep her behind firmly planted on a stool.

If she got off,

she would get kicked out of the kitchen.

We talked about safety.

About following the rules in the kitchen because,

as she had already learned,

cooking can be dangerous.

Next, she got a cucumber from the garden, and I showed her how to peel it.

We talked about safety again.

I showed her that you move the peeler away from your body, and keep your fingers behind it.

After kind of hacking the poor cucumber to death, she started to get the hang of it.

“Mom! Look! I’m doing it!” she squealed.

She felt so good about herself.

Things were turning around.

Before the BHWI (boiling hot water incident),

I considered letting her use a knife.

Post BHWI,

visions of Dan Akroyd and that Julia Child I’ve cut the dickens out of my finger SNL skit flashed before my eyes.

I aborted that plan.

I cut the tomatoes and cucumber, and Number 4 added them to the bowl.

Then she added a bottle of salad dressing,

and mixed it all up.

The stirring, and holding a spoon properly, is going to take some practice.

Once we master the stirring technique with things that aren’t,

you know,

scalding,

then we can increase the degree of difficulty.

We made a second pasta dish.

I cooked the pasta, steamed some broccoli, and cut up some grilled chicken.

Number 4 added in all of that, plus some mayonnaise

and mustard.

Scraping stuff out of one bowl into another is going to take a little practice too.

So we have some things to work on.

I’ve learned a little about teaching a kid to cook.

I didn’t realize that some things that seem so basic,

like stirring and scraping,

are really skills that need to be learned.

And they are good starting points.

That kids look at those things as helping.

And cooking.

And making.

And feeling really grown up.

I also learned to keep the first aid supplies in the kitchen.

Finally,  I learned to follow through.

It took some real motivation to actually make good on my word and cook a meal with a 6-year-old.

Especially a 6-year-old like Number 4.

After the BHWI, I was ready to scrap it.

And the salad dressing on the floor almost put me over the edge.

But we ended up having a nice time.

We made this:

and this:

But more importantly, we made a memory,

and believe it or not,

I’m really looking forward to doing it all over again.

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