Monday, July 17, 2006

Ahhhhhh, Hank returned home today. Ahhhhhh. She's tired, but she seems to be in one piece, both physically and emotionally.

Daisy also seems to have come through her mother's absence unscathed. As it turns out, taking care of a well-behaved six (nearly seven) year-old for a few days isn't the hardest thing I've done. Taking care of a screaming infant for one night was harder.

I wouldn't say that I did a GREAT job of caring for Daisy. She was a little less bathed than I would have liked, but given the questionable hygiene of her father, that was to be expected.

My best parenting moment probably came on Saturday night as I contemplated what to make her for breakfast the following morning. I had been planning to make her a fun treat by cooking up a batch of chocolate chip pancakes, but as I contemplated the ingredient list, I had a genius-level thought. It was one of those moments when everything comes together in crystal clarity, enabling a profound mental breakthrough.

When it comes right down to it, is there that big a difference between chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate chip cookies? Why not just bake cookies for breakfast? Why the hell not?

Really, the main difference between the two is that cookies have more sugar, but when you consider how thorougly Daisy immerses her pancakes in maple syrup, I'd doubt if she's getting more sugar from cookies. Therefore, since pancakes are a perfectly acceptable breakfast, and since chocolate chip pancakes are just a smidge worse nutritionally, and now that we've realized that chocolate chip pancakes are essentially the same thing as chocolate chip cookies, then I am feeding her a nutritious breakfast. QED. Those Cookie-Crisp people were ahead of their time.

I sat on the couch quite proud of myself. I imagined telling her that we were going to have cookies for breakfast, and I imagined cooking them with her. Then, I imagined having to explain myself to Hank, our friends, and the blogosphere. I grabbed the laptop and started writing my defense. I wrote these paragraphs:

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm a bad parent for feeding my daughter chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.

You're thinking that I'm creating food dependencies by repressing her sadness using cookies, feeding her unhealthy meals, and spoiling her all in one fell swoop. You're thinking that I'm not thinking. What you fail to understand is that these were freshly made chocolate chip cookies. Check and mate.

I mean, they weren't 100% home made. There was a box involved, but when it comes right down to it, did you see the box pressing the right buttons on the oven? No, that was me. Well, technically it was Daisy, but still, she's part of the home in "home made".


That's as far as I got before realizing that I was getting ahead of myself. Might as well actually live the event before I write about it.

So, I went to bed, woke up on Sunday morning, and.... couldn't pull the trigger. I made her chocolate chip pancakes instead.

Sorry, Daisy.

5 comments:

Willie Baronet said...

So sorry to hear about Hank's dad. I know you already talked about the futility of saying that, but it is part of the deal. You might find some irony in this post from a long time ago:

http://williebaronet.blogspot.com/2005/12/handy-phrases-to-know-when-someone.html

Mike said...

Thanks Rrramone. That's a good post. I'll be my wife heard all those.

zelda1 said...

You should have made the chocolate chip cookies, once in a while, it won't hurt. I like banana pancakes and for my seven-year-old grandson and the Baby, I make strawberry pancake men with raisin eyes. Yeah, we do what we can to get them to eat. This morning, sugar, butter, cinamon toasts. Yep, they had eggs too but didn't eat them. Acutally, homemade chocolate chip cookies are not that bad. I'm glad your Hank is home too. The baby needs both of you. Plus, while chocolate chip cookies every once in a while for breakfast isn't bad, good daily hygiene is a must. You still are a good dad.

Anonymous said...

You know, you can take care of the hygiene thing at breakfast (two birds, one stone, all that) if your sink has one of those spray-ey thingies; just hose Daisy down while she's enjoying her chocolate chip pancakes.

I'm sure she'll thank you when she's in college and remembers how you taught her to think outside the box when it comes to multi-tasking and saving time.

Mike said...

Zelda1, "feed the baby", "wash the baby". Geez! Parenting is hard! Where are the accolades for keeping the damn baby alive? Hmmmm?

Chess, I will pass your excellent advice onto my wife now that she's home. I'm confident she'll see the wisdom in your suggestion.