In an instant, she dissolved into tears and sobs, her mouth set as if in excruciating pain, as she dealt with the cruel unfairness of it all.
She turned and ran from the porch, wanting nothing further to do with her mother and grandpa – the two adults who had betrayed her.
There are probably grandfathers out there who could deal with a situation like that, toughening a kid up for life.
Not THIS grandpa, though. Nope. No way. Let others teach her about the disappointments of life. That's parent stuff. Been there. Done that.
Grandpas are about playground trips, dip cones at Dairy Queen, and sitting on an old bench watching trains go by. Fun stuff.
It was about four years ago – the grand daughter in question is now six – that “the cookie thing” got started. It soon became a rule:
Whenever Gramps visits, cookies are to be baked, first with the assistance of one grand daughter, then two years later, with two. (Red hair, blue eyes, both cute as buttons.) It's a fun thing to do together, and gives their mother a break while we make a big mess in her kitchen.
Someday when I'm gone, homemade cookies will remind them of me.
We're good at it. Our favorite is Hershey Kisses Peanut Butter Cookies. And we like Oatmeal Scotchies. On this trip the plan was to have twice as much fun, making the peanut butter cookies the first afternoon, then sugar cookies, frosted, the second afternoon.
We knocked out a killer batch of the Hershey Kiss cookies the first afternoon.
The second day, however, the girls were occupied most of the afternoon, playing outside with the dogs, a little screen time, and then busy with toys. We didn't want to interrupt them, figuring they'd forget the cookies. And time was getting short before we had to go out to dinner.
That's when the older grand daughter asked when we were going to bake the sugar cookies. And I replied, “Maybe we could save that for next time I'm here...”
That sparked the meltdown.
My daughter looked at me, wondering if I could withstand the onslaught of a crying, hugely disappointed grand daughter. She knew I couldn't.
So with 90 minutes left before dinner, we headed to the kitchen. And my grand daughter miraculously recovered. Her life was good again.
The girls enjoyed measuring out the flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, a couple other ingredients, then taking their places on either side of the mixer – one to lower the beaters into the bowl, the other to man the speed control.
(Gramps can be a real grouch when it comes to getting little fingers too close to the beaters.)
The older one remembers the time she mistakenly turned the mixer on high, shooting flour all over both of us and everything around us. There's a memory that will last. We still laugh about it.
After the mixing, the girls were licking the beaters when I realized we didn't have time to let the dough firm up in the fridge. But we soldiered on, rolling the sticky dough out flat with a rolling pin, and cutting Halloween shapes out with a cookie cutter.
Except working with the sticky dough was difficult, and the distinctive shapes were not distinctive at all. They looked like cow pies. But undaunted, we put them in the oven.
After 10 minutes, and my usual grouchy lecture about little fingers getting burned on hot cookie sheets, they were done. The plan was to frost them, but there was no time for that.
And when they cooled enough to taste, our hopelessly unrecognizable Halloween sugar cookies tasted pretty doggone good. The girls learned a lesson about deadlines, making the best of a situation, and successfully manipulating Gramps. And they learned that ugly cookies can taste every bit as good as the killer batch of Hershey Kiss cookies we baked the day before.
The six-year-old had her first day of school in September. They had each student think of their favorite things, which were written on a blackboard.
My grand daughter's two favorite things:
“HORSES and
“Baking with Grampa.”
(!)
Friends, I don't know how life gets any fuller than that.
Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
