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Baking up is hard to do

May 13, 2007

By Tiffany Horvath

Every Sunday, a different family at our church signs up to bring light refreshments after the service.

Last Sunday was my turn.

I had been looking forward to baking some items for this day for almost half a year.

During B.C. times (Before Children), I delighted in weekly baking. I would work all week in my business suit, and would actually don an apron on the weekend and bake up all sorts of goodies that I would subsequently refuse to eat because of the caloric content in them.

I always made my husband take them with them to his office, where he assured me hoards of eager soldiers made quick work of my culinary masterpieces.

I baked with such regularity that some of the individuals my husband worked with would actually call over weekends to request favorite items.

I haven't baked like that in over 36 months. By sheer coincidence, my son is just over three years old.

Prior to my husband's deployment, I recall that I did spend one glorious day late in my pregnancy with kid number two baking. My husband took our toddling son to the park, and I delighted in covering the kitchen, myself and the unwary cats with flour and spices.

So, with that pleasure in mind, I was truly looking forward to creating the baked goods when my annual Sunday came around.

However, whilst gaily clipping recipes and planning a cooking menu and schedule, I neglected to take into account aforementioned three-year old and his baby sister.

They changed everything.

For one thing, the baby wanted to be held and she had a small cough. As I could not imagine serving delicacies that she had eagerly coughed upon as she squirmed on my hip, I decided not to tackle anything until her naptime. But, at that time, it had begun to rain outside and I insisted my son come inside and dry off, much to his incredible dismay. Apparently, three-year old boys are impervious to rain.

As it turned out, he decided he wanted to help mommy bake. He wasn't very good at it, nor were his baking ideas anything I would serve anyone with a pulse. However, he was so eager to assist and so excited about helping mommy that I had to laugh at him.

So, I shoved my baking ideas aside for the afternoon and had him help me roll and cut out some sugar cookies. As soon as they were cool, and possibly even before, we were both elbow deep in colored frosting.

My son and I spent the next two hours decorating the cookies with some sprinkles I had leftover from Christmas. We frosted them in a variety of spring-like colors, and then I watch in helpless amusement as my child proceeded to dump entire bottles of colored candies over his creations. He was quite proud and intent on what he was doing, and I was more than willing to keep supplying him with sprinkles. We had baked about four dozen cookies. He went through 16 plastic canisters of sprinkles in decorating them.

We were only part way through our baking when the baby awoke from her nap, so I brought her down to join us. I assumed, since she could not see the table top, she would not be too interested in what we were doing.

When I left the room for a moment to get something, I returned to find my baby girl enthusiastically sucking purple, pink, green and blue

fingers.

Apparently, even babies who cannot see over the tops of tables can still stick gooey fingers into soft frosted cookies set to dry at the edge of said table and lick off the results.

It was the absolute most fun she had ever had upon waking up from a nap.

Out of the four dozen cookies we baked, only about 24 were deemed healthy enough for me to take to church.

The rest of them were pockmarked with little-boy holes, baby girls finger smears or were smashed by the sheer weight of sprinkles and frosting they were supporting.

It took me almost five minutes to find a cookie under one frosting lump.

And I realized that, twenty years from now, I would rather he remembered helping me decorate and frost the most hideous sugar cookies ever invented than watching a rerun of Sesame Street.

I also knew, that at his age, he probably won't recall this rainy afternoon and the total destruction of my kitchen for our baking enjoyment.

But I will remember, and it will be another story for his daddy to laugh over when he hears it, and to hesitatingly ask me if the kitchen survived.

It will be a memory that makes me smile for weeks to come, and for that I am

grateful. And I simply went to church the next morning, dropped my son off at Sunday School and baked the rest of refreshments in the church kitchen.

It was peaceful and quiet there, and I had the entire place to myself to engage in any type of baking experiment I wanted.

I was delirious with excitement. But I discovered it wasn't nearly as much fun as the day before.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, is deployed to Iraq. She writes every Sunday abut life at home for the wife of a deployed soldier.