Warm Cookies

“Mom, can we make cookies?”

Those hazel eyes looked up at me lovingly last week, one hand pushing back her curls. I was about to put George down for a nap. Andrew was at school.

“Can we Mom?”

By some accidental spark of genius, or perhaps good intentioned folly, the unwritten rule in our house is that the only cookies we have are ones that we make. I have never stated this rule to the kids. It just became a fact. They don’t ask for cookies in the supermarket. If I bought them, they would ask me what they were for.

Unfortunately, stay at home mom or not, I do not always feel like baking cookies. But, once we get started, I love to see them peering into the stand mixer. I love to see the anticipation in their eyes when I pull off the beater and let them lick it. I even love it when my daughter turns the stand mixer on way too high (even after she said she wouldn’t) and flour poufs everywhere. By the end, I manage to forget about the floor and am asking Gladys to try a chocolate chip before we pour them in the bowl, just to make sure they taste right. I had used the same recipe as my mother, the one out of that blue McCall’s cookbook from the 60’s. You know, the one that has those fabulous now vintage pictures and the hints on how to set a proper breakfast table for your husband on a weekday morning.

We made cookies.

The first batch came out of the oven just as it was time to go to the bus stop to greet Andrew.

“Shoes on, Honey. Grab your jacket. Time to get Andrew.”

“Let’s run, Mommy!”

Gladys loves to run. We hold hands. We run to the bus stop.

Andrew jumped off the bus stop happy as could be. He had a great day at school. He jumped into my arms, all 50+ pounds of my six year old. Gladys wanted to join in, so I picked her up too, holding on to Andrew’s back; these are Mommy muscles.

The three of us held hands and ran all the way home through the crisp fall air. My lungs felt clean.

Gladys announced our surprise before we made it to the door, but no words could be as powerful as the smell of warm cookies.

All of the sudden, I had gotten off the bus myself, like so many years ago.