Cooking With Trevor

Trevor, my 4-year old, has a new obsession: Cooking with Daddy.

Seriously, obsession. We'll be driving home and Trevor will start frantically asking, "is Daddy home yet?" "Is Daddy cooking dinner?" "Will Daddy wait for me?" With each question you can hear in his voice the panic rising. I will ultimately call Kelly and inform him of his boy's request to wait for him to get home to cook dinner together, just to pacify the poor kid.

Luckily, Trevor's other obsession is washing his hands, so that's never an issue. So as soon as he hits the ground running out the van door, he picks up the step stool, carries it to the sink and washes his hands. Then he moves the stool to the counter, where he climbs up and parks his caboose and waits for whatever task Kelly assigns him (and whatever food he can sample). Their latest wonderful co-creation was a delicious apple crisp dessert. Kelly brought home a gazillion apples from work, and he and Trevor made 3 apple crisps to share with co-workers and Trevor's teachers. I've got to admit, it was by far the best apple crisp I've ever had too.

Things I've noted about cooking with Trevor, which I'm sure applies to all kids:
1. "Hurry" is not in any child's vocabulary, so just plan on this taking some extra time
2. "Mess" IS in every child's vocabulary, so just plan on their being one
3. About the time Trevor's interest is waning, you can feed him something to pull him back on track!
4. Make a big deal out of how good the child is doing and/or how good the results are, and watch him beam!

Maybe we have a little chef on our hands...we'll see!