My Sous Chef

One of Robby's true loves at the moment is cooking.  As he's fussing in his car seat on the way home from daycare, one of the easiest ways to distract him into conversation is by asking, "What should we cook for dinner?"  And a little voice will immediately pipe up, "COOK?!?"  

Note: These are pictures of Robby making Peas and Thank You's Falafel  Delicious!

As we walk in the door, he's flying to the pantry or refrigerator or where-ever his version of ingredients are located.  With the "child-proof" hooks, there are only a limited number he can squeeze his hand in and retrieve, but that doesn't stop him from trying.  Consequently, he's almost always retrieved the rice by the time I get my coat off. 

Once I can "Hep!" (help) and open the cabinet, he goes for an over-sized can of broth or, if I'm holding him, the spice shelf.  Those miniature containers are just too tempting.  But he MUST be set back down, and allowed to carry the items over to the counter on his own.  He'll run to the dining room to retrieve a chair to stand on, and then start screaming in frustration that it's too big for him to move.

He stands in front of drawers that have measuring spoons, cups, and silverware, and usually uses about 10x the number of utensils that are needed.  Taking one out, stirring once, and putting it back.  This makes for some extra washing.  But he likes loading and unloading the dishwasher, too.

His favorite parts are getting to dump in ingredients, and to stir.  Both of which he's pretty good at.  Strike that.  His favorite part is "CACK" -ing the eggs.  He whaps it against the counter and hands it to me.  This...does not always go smoothly.  But that's ok.  It's fun.

It's so much fun having a helper in the kitchen now.  He scares me standing on the chair, messing with the knobs on the stove or climbing the oven (though he will tell you they're "hot!"), or reaching for knives, but it's a learning process.  One of these days I'll put up the video of him beating eggs.  But, while I succeeded in downloading my camera, the videos have not made it off yet.  Baby steps, folks.