Pancakes

Pancakes.
Simple enough. Every mom has made endless  stacks of pancakes. Because what kid doesn't like them??


Girl child, also known as "Bonnie", had to be about 2 maybe 3 years old. She never missed a thing going on. She saw ALL. She remembered it, too....well, SOME of it anyway. 


I, like every mom I know, had a box of pancake mix in the pantry. Its the "just add water" kind....the kid you can make before the coffee is ready and the kids are wide awake screaming for food, the kind you can make hungover or sleep deprived. The kind you can make without measuring the mix or the water. Just add one or the other til it looks "right".  


Well, I must have slept too late, or took too long to get ready one day. The kids are relatively quiet....which, yes. I KNOW should have caused concern, but, the peace was nice.....


I came down the stairs to the kitchen level. I stopped mid way down. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. There, all along the counters, tables, chairs, living room sofa, chairs, coffee table, floor and ending at a kitchen chair was a trail of white powder. There in her yellow flowered footie jammies, was the cute, sweet little girl child I had once dreamed of. In front of her on the chair was the now empty box of pancake mix with a fairly large pile of mix on the chair. That cute little toddler was patting her hands in the pile of mix. 


I gasped, and said, "oh, "Bonnie", WHAT are you doing?" And without stopping her little hands playing in the mix, she looked over her shoulder at me. The look on her face would stop a charging army. It would reduce a lesser person to a very small pile of ashes. She responded, with all the disdain she could muster, "Makin pancakes. Duh!" and returned to her pile of mix on the chair., while shaking her head.


I had no response. She struck me speechless. Completely, utterly speechless. In my mind, all I could think was how grateful I was that she hadn't added water yet.