Watch out, there’s a Two Year Old in the kitchen!

Our CamCam LOVES to cook.  Every time I’m in the kitchen, he starts pushing over one of the bar stools and saying “I see ma, I see.”  He likes to have his chair directly in front of whatever it is I’m cooking.  Which makes cooking kinda difficult, but I figure that if I encourage his love of cooking, maybe it will continue on to an age when he can actually do some of it for me.

One can dream, right?

So the other day I decided to make a big Italian dinner.  Spaghetti and meatballs with homemade bread.  And once again, I had my little helper:

 

Really, I should have been standing in front of the mixer since that’s where the center of attention was, but CamCam wasn’t budging.  Plus, he had very important things to do.  Like stacking the measuring spoons into various configurations.

 

He was having a great time.  He loves to watch all the ingredients going into the bowl, he loves it even more when the mixer spins.  “Circle ma, circle ma, it go circle ma,” he says the entire time it’s mixing.  Then I needed to measure the wet ingredients and went to get the measuring cup, forgetting that it is kept in the Forbidden Cupboard. 

CamCam is way to big, in my opinion, to be drinking out of a bottle.  But he LOVES bottles.  When he’s really upset over something and needs comforting, I’ll give him one.  And he’s been known to swipe the baby’s.  But I keep them up high and hidden.  He flipped out when I opened up the cupboard, he wanted one so badly.  I tried to distract him by letting him help me put the flour in the bowl. 

OOPS.

At least measuring flour for bread isn’t an exact science. 

Then I had to stir the meatballs, CamCam was very interested in this. 
“Hey ma! Whatcha doin’?”
”Mixing.”
”What is that?”
”Meatballs.”
”Eatballs?  No, it’s chicken.”
”No, it’s meatballs.”
”No eatballs, it’s chicken.”

That little stool of his kept inching closer and closer to the stove.  I told him it was hot and very dangerous so he needed to stay away, but he wanted to see.  I think my kids believe I make this stuff up because I’m mean.

The entire time I’m cooking, it’s a constant stream of conversation from CamCam.  He wants to know every detail of what’s being done.  I assume he’s filing this info away for when he’s older and takes over the cooking responsibilities.  Right?

 
“Whatcha doin’ ma?”
”Putting this in.”
”Cheese?!?!
”No, this isn’t cheese, it’s butter.”
”No, not budda.  Cheese!  I wike-it cheese.”

Huh, he’s not very trainable.

We had a lot of fun together, he really does love the whole cooking process. 

But then I decided cooking time was over.

 

At least if I wanted to make food people could actually eat.