A Slight Misunderstanding

A few days ago, the Lima Bean was helping me bake brownies. She just turned 2 and this was the first time she really was able to be of actual assistance (as opposed to destruction) in the process. She cracked eggs, poured oil and did some good stirring for me.

Lima enjoyed this process very much and I told her that as a special treat she could lick out the bowl after I was done with it. You know every kid loves doing that. Despite the massive quantities of brownies I have been known to consume (and then try and pin the blame for the missing brownies on the cats, to no avail), Lima had never had brownies before. So this would not only be her first brownie baking event, but her first brownie eating event. She was very excited about my offer to let her lick out the bowl when I was done with it. She stood there patiently waiting while I spooned the thick, rich brownie batter into the pan. After most of it was in the pan, I did a final scrape of the mixing bowl and then said, “OK, we’re all set. You can scrape out the bowl now.”

Lima looked really upset and disillusioned and said “No. No! This bowl, this bowl! I lick this bowl please Mommy.” As she said this, she pointed to the pan full of brownie batter that was about to go into the oven. She assumed that the pan of brownie batter was for her, of course, because who would make such a big deal out of licking out a dirty old mixing bowl? Makes sense, actually.

So we had some explaining to do and after just a minute of convincing (and a lick off the spatula), she was hooked and happily sat on the floor with her nearly empty mixing bowl. I put the pan of brownies in the oven and 50 minutes later we had delicious, rich, chocolate magic. Now that Lima’s had a taste of brownies, I think she’ll be more than happy to help me whip up a batch any time.