Today I was set to make a memory. It is the week before Christmas and a time for special memories. One of my fondest memories of Christmas is baking. I love to bake and my kids love to bake. We love to eat what we bake. During Christmas we love to watch Christmas cartoons, eat the cookies we baked and drink hot cocoa. So it would be a perfect afternoon of baking followed by Christmas cartoons and hot cocoa. Homemade hot cocoa to top it off as well! Sadly, this perfect picture was not how the afternoon turned out. With preschoolers your life can be unpredictable at best. One minute they are happy and the next they are fussing about something so minor to us. That was where our adventure begun; fussing.
My oldest and I spent the morning making up hot cocoa mixes to give as gifts to our neighbors and Sunday school teachers. It was fun piling the mix, mini chocolate chips and marshmallows in jars and hot gluing ribbon to make it look festive. We had such a lovely morning we decided to make the cookies today as well. Making cookies is a favorite activity for my preschooler. Her ears perked up and she dashed over to the table asking when we would back the cookies. She was especially excited to make gingerbread men with the new gingerbread family cookie cutters. I told her to go in the other room and once we cleaned up the table we would call her back in to help. She was happy.
Table was clean, ingredients were out, and we were ready to go. My oldest began putting the ingredients in the bowl for the dough. My preschooler whined because she didn’t get to put in an ingredient. She then added the sugar. We decided to let that go since it was the week of Christmas. Then a full fledge tantrum ensued. Out of nowhere my child decided to make a large fuss over being handed the cookie cutter of the boy gingerbread and not the girl. As my other daughter used the girl gingerbread the wails of preschooler could be heard all the way to the north pole. I was in shock then I looked at the clock. It was afternoon and all week my preschooler has gone to bed hours past her bedtime and has not had a nap since I could remember. Note to self: Make sure preschooler is well rested before beginning an activity she likes to be in control of and has a vision for.