First Time Cracking an Egg

Our cookies with some yogurt in between and left in the freezer for a bit

Married at 19, four kids at 28, and divorced at 30. In the blink of an eye my mom went from a full time housewife/ stay at home mom to a 40+ hour a week third shift factory worker who slept as much as she could manage and spent the rest of her waking hours surviving and raising four small children alone.

Before the catastrophic shift in all our lives she was teaching me how to cook. I remember I had this small set of little kid cook books. I loved those books. I think that having my very own cook books made me feel like something of an adult. Each one had a certain category of food. I seem to remember one being beverages and there was a recipe for egg nog in that one. There was one for desserts which had a recipe for a chocolate dump cake that I was always thrilled to make. I don't remember what the four categories were or what other recipes were included but the books were a pale yellow color and I loved them.

My favorite thing to do with my mom though was bake Christmas cookies. We had a set of recipes that we/ she made every single year and Christmas cookie baking time was certainly the highlight of every Christmas season. I was still young when my parents split but I enjoyed cooking with my mom before the microwave baked potatoes or noodles with cheese days.

My son is a super spunky three year old who loves to bake with mommy. I generally let him pour/ dump the ingredients in the bowl and he helps me stir. If there's kneading or rolling pin work to be done he's sure to lend a hand. He loves "sprinkling" flour on the table and sampling the dough. And he almost always asks to crack the egg. I've always, always, always said, "no, you have to wait until you're bigger." I mean, come on, there are adults who can't properly crack an egg.

Today we made chocolate chip cookies. He was thrilled when I handed him an empty measuring cup and told him he needed to scoop the sugar. I always scoop each ingredient and then hand him the cup to dump in the bowl. This time was special. He got to scoop the white sugar all by himself and then the brown. He stirred them into the butter and then I completed that task. Then I handed him the egg. He hadn't even asked if he could crack it. I wish I could describe the look to you that he had on his face. It was a look that said a million things, "am I really old enough? are you actually letting me do this? are you serious? is this a joke? have I just won the lottery?" (okay maybe not that one since he doesn't know what the lottery is)

I told him to tap it on the edge of the table and he was radiant. He tapped it, tapped it once more and then got to crack it into the small bowl I set aside specifically for the egg. Once I picked two little bits of shell out he got to place the newly cracked egg into the butter sugar mix. He was on cloud nine. I also let him measure out the flour, baking soda, salt and chips. His first batch of cookies, that if you were to ask him he made all on his own. In truth, the white sugar probably had a bit less than it called for. The brown sugar was a little bit more. The flour wasn't exactly measured (as you might imagine with a three year old at the helm) but I think this was our most successful batch of cookies to date.

My new years resolution was to experience more new things. I have a cheat because I'm living life with a small child. Today's new experience was brilliant! Experiencing my son cracking an egg for the very first time... this one goes down in the books (or on the blog). Very much like the good days of childhood when I used to bake with my mother.

My mom with my brothers
(I think my son looks just like both of them)