Anyone for cake?

                                                                         in my kitchen

              

              

It's amazing how other peoples actions can spur you into action & out of the every day coma that you walk around in. As I mentioned yesterday, my dear friend lost her baby girl last month. We're still trying to make sense of it all, & whilst she tries to get on with her life we must all try to to remember all the good things about our own lives.

Those who know me, know that I'm not a fan of messy play. I'm such a control freak that I can't stand mess & get things dirty. It's a terrible personality trait that I'm trying to address but there's just something in me that constantly resists. The thing about toddlers is that they LOVE MESS! the more mess they make, the happier they are. My toddler especially loves to get in a right old state, but rarely does he get the chance.

So today after I collected Evan from nursery I decided that we'd both get in a right old mess & that we did! We did some baking or 'mixing' as Evan likes to call it. We made some chocolate cup cakes. He really enjoyed exploring all of the textures with his hands, pouring the flour from the bag into the bowl & literally throwing the egg into the mix. It didn't crack so he took it out of the bowl, gave it to me & said "open it" which made me giggle. I then showed him how to sieve the cocoa into the mixture & then give it a good old whisk! We had a lot of fun doing this with the hand whisk but he wasn't too keen on the electric one .. his response "too noisy".

I'm always amazed with how Evan loves the detail in things. He's just like his Dad in that respect, so patient & interested in the journey rather than the end result. As soon as we'd done the mixture he knew he had to put the paper cases into a tray. As soon as he saw them he said "Evan do it". He wasn't interested in chucking them in as fast as he could, he wanted to separate them from each other & place them in the tin. This process took forver, but I didn't rush him - why would I? He was having so much fun.

It was time to put the mixture in the cases, so I did the first one to show Evan how to do it, but he wasn't interested, he just wanted to put more cases in more tins. Each time counting how many he'd placed inside. We are up to twenty with our counting now, I don't think I'll ever bore of him saying "eleben". 20 minutes later the timer went on the oven, & Evan shouted "Pizzas ready!" - too cute!

I had so much fun baking with Evan, we made a hell of a mess, flour & cocoa everywhere but you know what - it was so much fun & whilst we sat on the kitchen floor watching them bake my little boy came over to me, hit me in the face & declared "I like baking Mummy" & you know what Evan, I like it too.