Making muffins

“You want to use our Christmas tree muffin pans?” In some far-away and barely remembered period of pre-child insanity, I used to buy various seasonal cake pans. I guess I must’ve thought our whirlwind social life of swanky graduate school soirees really required that I make individual Easter egg cakes, which possibly I imagined decorating with fondant and icing? At any rate, I spent years snapping up discount Wilton pans from T.J. Maxx at the first sign of any holiday, and now I’m well supplied, which is a good thing, since my little Will loves to make blueberry muffins.

We wake up before everybody else on the weekends—one of us by choice, the other on request—and the first thing we do is assemble our ingredients. I’m not crazy enough that we make them from scratch every morning, so we use mixes, but still we’re cooking. Essentially I stand in my spot in the kitchen and direct my little sous chef: “Oh no! We don’t have the eggs and milk!” He’ll gather up everything except the muffin pans themselves, which, since I have so many, are wedged too precariously into the cabinet for him to extract one; he brings me the big bowl, the “measure cup,” and my favorite, the “eoyyl” or oil. He loves to break the Humpty Dumpties, although he likes to tap them on the edge of the pan until they’re bludgeoned to death—anything to keep that slimy egg from getting on his hands when it breaks.

We have the most interesting discussions while we’re cooking. I’ve encouraged him a little too much in his cooking skills, I guess, because we also have a running commentary: “I’m a good stirrer!” and “I’m a good cook!” Actually, he is. This morning I told him that if he could keep this up when he’s grown, he’ll have his choice of girls to marry. (Don’t ask why I felt compelled to make this comment. I don’t know. I just know I end up saying the oddest things to try to encourage my little protofeminist to grow up thinking sharing household labor is good!) “No, I don’t want to do that, that would be really disgusting!” We had a good chat about how Mommy and Daddy got married. “And was that disgusting?” No, I didn’t think so. And so on. He doesn’t appear to be reconciled the idea of getting married himself, which is fine since after all he’s only three, but he guesses it’s not disgusting that we chose that option.

Sometimes I wonder if he’ll like to cook as an adult because we made muffins together. More often I wonder if he’ll remember making muffins with his mother every weekend. Either way, I don’t mind cooking nearly as much when I have my helper. For right now—the muffins are ready.