Determined Kid In The Kitchen: Guest Post

Today I’m welcoming Nancy from Life Takes Over as a special guest blogger here at This Mom Loves. I think you’ll enjoy her tale of her daughter baking almost independently, and it’s a good reminder to me that I need to let my girls get messy and have fun in the kitchen, even if it’s not the most efficient way to get things done!

You can find Nancy’s bio at the end of the post.

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As a partial work-at-home mom, I have to find age-appropriate activities to keep my daughter busy while I get my work done. We’re home together every morning before she skips off to Senior Kindergarten and I head into the office, so our time together isn’t very long. And some days I can manage to focus a little more attention on her than other days (depending on my deadlines).

Something I have recently discovered about my daughter is she loves to bake. And, with her major independence streak and I-can-do-it-myself attitude, it’s tough to stand in her way.

So what’s a busy working mom to do?

Well, baking usually doesn’t involve much chopping, so she can’t hurt herself with a sharp knife. The ingredients won’t harm her in any way (until after they come out of the oven). The work involved isn’t too hard. So really, when you think about it, except for the actual baking in a hot oven part, a determined child could manage—with a slight bit of adult guidance—to bake up a storm (I mean it. A storm. You should see my kitchen when my daughter is done.)

Now, the adult guidance in my house comes in the form of laid out and pre-measured ingredients. My daughter is, after all, only five and her reading skills are still being developed. (I hope to extricate myself from the process of pre-measuring ingredients by this time next year.)

To keep my daughter occupied for the morning in question, this is what I did:

1. Chose a muffin recipe she would like to eat and one that seemed easy enough for her to manage on her own

2. Shredded the carrots ahead of time and measured them out

3. Pre-measured all the ingredients and laid them out

4. Provided bowls and spoons and brief instructions on the dumping and mixing of ingredients

Then I left her alone in the kitchen to dump and mix and concoct her afternoon snack: Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins.

I tiptoed away to get some work done and peeked into the kitchen from time to time. She was busily working away as if these muffins were her greatest creation.

I’ve allowed her to bake on her own a few times now and the trick I have found to make this all work (keep her occupied and still have a edible tasty result) is to pick a simple recipe that doesn’t require ingredients to be added in any particular order or that skips the step of sifting together the dry ingredients (something I hate doing anyway). This recipe, however, called for mixing the dry ingredients separately and my daughter tackled that in true baker’s style.

I found the recipe on Food.com (http://www.food.com/recipe/carrot-muffins-86055 ) and it really was tasty. And healthy, too. It called for whole wheat flour and it has carrots in it. I’m a happy mom if I can get my kids to eat veggies. And if a carrot muffin is the only way I can do it, so be it.

The only thing she asked me for help with (because I insisted, not because she actually wanted my help) was putting the muffins in the pre-heated oven. (OK, I helped scoop the batter into the pans; but not all of it. She was pretty insistent that she do it until her arms got tired.) The trick to getting the batter in the muffin cups without it ending up all over the pans is to use a small measuring cup and do it a bit at a time.

The muffins turned out light, fluffy even, and absolutely scrumptious. They didn’t last long enough to take a picture. We will definitely make them again; or rather, I will have my daughter make them again. The result being three-fold: Delicious muffins, some free time for mom to get her work done, and the all-important result, a child with a proud sense of accomplishment!

And if you’d like to try the recipe, here it is:

Carrot Muffins

By Mairead Kelly on March 07, 2004

• Prep Time: 20 mins

• Total Time: 40 mins

• Serves: 12, Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 egg

• 3/4 cup orange juice

• 1/2 cup melted margarine

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1 cup white flour

• 1 cup whole wheat flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon ( more or less to taste)

• 2 cups shredded carrots

Directions

1. Beat egg lightly in large bowl.

2. Add orange juice, margarine, and sugar, beat well.

3. Sift together dry ingredients.

4. Stir into egg mixture, mix only till moistened.

5. Gently fold in shredded carrots (I shred the carrots in my food processor).

6. Spoon into well greased muffin pans about 2/3 full.

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees.

So baking has been done. And if I know my daughter, now that she has mastered this, it won’t be long before she tires of it. Got any suggestions for how I can keep my busy, determined 5-year-old occupied each morning?

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About Nancy:

I talk too much. Truth be told, I’m happier when my mouth is shut and my pen is flowing cursively across the page. (Or my fingers are tapping out my thoughts on a keyboard.) And so, this is my return to writing. I’m a daughter, sister, wife, mother, writer, editor, blogger, tweeter, chauffeur, organizer, planner, dreamer, friend, and sometimes, I’m me.

And “me” is a busy mom running ragged and trying to keep up, who blogs about trying to be the mom and person she wants to be even on the days when the world forces her to admit that she can only be who she is.

What will you find on my blog? A little bit of everything. I swear I suffer from attention deficit disorder. I can’t focus on writing about just one thing, so you’ll find a little bit of everything here.

I love writing about food because it’s all about the journey for me. (I used to hate cooking and baking or anything else to do with the kitchen for that matter. Now, I’m the chef in the family!) I also write about my kids and motherhood. There again, it’s all about the journey. I enjoy supporting and writing about things that I believe in, so sometimes you might find a review or an article about something that has appealed to me in some way.

Oh, and the reason my blog is called Life Takes Over…I met my husband long before we were an item and then we met again and became an item years later. I had been through some adult, responsibility-bearing experiences and kept trying to convince him that life takes over, whether we want it to or not. He was (and still is) a free spirit and believed that it didn’t have to be that way. When I started writing again, he suggested Life Takes Over as a name for my blog.

I hope you join me on my journey as Life Takes Over.