A Goal Accomplished

When I was a senior in high school, I had to write a short essay on what I hoped to accomplish in life. One of the things I wrote was that I wanted to be a mother who greeted her children with homemade cookies when they arrived from school at the end of the day. Now, mind you, I didn't have a mother like that--she worked as the kindergarten teacher or librarian at my school from the time I was in 5th grade. So who knows where I got that idea--chalk it up to being 17 and living in Nebraska.

Well, I did end up being a mother of three wonderful children, but I worked before my oldest was born and I kept right on working after he and his siblings arrived except for the relatively short maternity leaves I took. We did a fair amount of cookie making together over the years, but after school "quality" time was usually spent in the car on the way home from day care in the elementary years, and in the case of my second son, on the way home from track practice at his high school.

Then, last year, I found myself with only one child at home. She runs cross country and had a meet during my last week of summer vacation. The night before the meet, I baked a batch of brownies and a batch of oatmeal cookies for her to pass out after the race. The kids were so grateful (guess their moms weren't home after school with milk and cookies either) and one even joked that he liked me better than his own mom. So I started baking for each meet. I even baked for the day when my daughter participated in a recruiting session for the incoming freshman. And I'm continuing to bake before each meet this year. The kids love it (and so do the coaches). I think it may have been a major factor in my daughter becoming the co-captain of the team this year. After using approximately 20 pounds of sugar and flour over the last two seasons, I think I can check "being there with cookies" off my list.

FYI: Yes, that is an avocado green Sunbeam mixer. I got it as a wedding present in 1975. It still works wonderfully as does the avocado green hand mixer I got the Christmas before I graduated from college. However, the bowl is not the original. Early one morning in December, 1991 (I know because it happened days before my daughter was born), I rushed downstairs as fast as a woman who was 41 weeks pregnant could move after hearing a "thunk" in the kitchen. I found my son, who was then 2 1/2, eating the cookie dough I had refrigerated overnight out of a bowl that was now slightly chipped. I finally got tired of catching my fingers on the chip and found a replacement at a hardware store (remember those??).

More FYI: When we remodeled our kitchen six years ago, we put in an island that houses the stove. I insisted on an electrical outlet on the side of the island. Best decision ever since I store the mixer, flour and sugar in the cabinet below the counter and I can just pull everything out to start baking.