My son always has tons of questions about the world around him and the way things work. Most of the time, I am at a loss as to how to answer these questions. For example, the other day he wanted to know about signals and how we could see them. As in, radio signals or cell phone signals. He wondered if they were like infrared light and could only be seen with special glasses or if we can’t see them at all. I had no clue and suggested he bring the topic up with his dad b/c, “Daddy knows a lot about signals and things like that.” I’ll be honest… quite often, I have to suggest he bring his question to Daddy b/c Daddy knows a lot about that subject. Like how e-mails make it from our computer to Daddy’s work….or infrared light making the remote tell the tv to turn on…and countless other things.
So, I found it particularly endearing the other night when the two of us were driving to catechism and he says, “Mom, what’s something you know about that Daddy doesn’t?” I had to think a minute b/c to be honest, I think Scott is quite a bit smarter than I am b/c he has spent his life questioning things and finding out how things work and why they work. But, here was my 5 year old seeking me out, to find out what he could ask me about that I would know the answer to. It totally warmed my heart. So, I said, “Well, I know a little about cooking and Daddy doesn’t.” “Tell me about cooking, Mom,” “What do you know?” Hmm… how does one answer such an open ended question. For some reason, I started telling him about cooking things from scratch over using a mix. I told him with a boxed mix, you typically just add a few ingredients, but when you cook from scratch you have to basically make the mix. It often takes more work, but typically it tastes better than a mix. We talked about cookies and brownies and how we don’t make brownies that often. (I am more a sucker for chocolate chip cookies than brownies).
2 days later I was looking around the kitchen to make a dessert to take to our friend’s house for dinner. I found a recipe for mint chocolate brownies on the back of the mint chocolate chip bag. As the kids and I began to bake them, my son said, “Hey, is this baking from scratch?” Indeed it was.
I love that my son wanted to take the time to learn from me and and get to know more about my interests and “expertise.” And I loved how he recalled that conversation a few days later. It was one of those bonding moments, that I want to savor.
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