Here are a few of the lessons I learned.
Be Prepared
When working on a project as easy as baking cookies, its easy to fall into old habits. I'm sure most good cooks will recommend getting all your ingredients ready before you start, however I tend to get things out as I need them. This method works when your baking by yourself or with another adult, however with a toddler its difficult to keep him on track and scramble for eggs, flour and butter.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
This title should be the mantra for all parents with small children. Being a engineer by trade, its difficult for me to overlook some of the seemingly unimportant details of a project. During our cookie baking, Christopher was determined to spill as much of the flour as possible. After a few minutes I managed to get my brain under control and decided that an eighth of a cup of missing flour wouldn't ruin the cookies
Give Yourself Plenty of Time
When we started our project I figured an hour was plenty of time to mix and bake a least one sheet of chocolate chip cookies (we had to try some before bedtime). In the end we did have enough time however we bumped into bedtime a little bit. While I believe this activity was worth a later bedtime, its now an hour past Christopher's regular bedtime and he is still not asleep.
Don't Forget to Have Fun
Our cookie baking project was lots of fun and I'm looking forward to planning something similar as the holiday season nears (maybe gingerbread men!) As parents we often forget that activities that we view as work can be great fun for our children. Christopher loves to help out around the house and having him help with baking cookies was fun for both of us.
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