Year of Pleasures 4

Cooking with Piper. Piper has taken being displaced as the baby of the family remarkably well. She's struggled with some jealously issues but for the most part, she's been her wonderful cheerful self. Piper is just a happy kid. She was totally my baby for five years before the arrival of R and we both enjoyed every second of it. She's super social and the toughest part of having a little sister is having to share her mama time. I'm bad at this. I admit that when I have a baby I become really engrossed in the baby. I mean, to some extent I think it's normal and necessary. The baby needs you in ways that older kids do not but I am such a baby person. It's shocking, I know, but I freaking love me some baby. Thus when a new one comes along I tend to become engrossed. Luckily H picks up the slack because he's better with the older ages. 

 Still Piper needs mama time everyday. I tried to teach her some reading stuff because she wanted to learn to read but R isn't always so well behaved during those sessions. I kept trying to figure out a way to go out with just Piper but this lead to the other kids wanting a lone time too. When you have three older kids this get expensive and time consuming super fast. Finally it hit me. Cooking. It's something I do everyday and it's something Piper always wants to help me with. I could wear R on my back and have her out of the way.

Of course it was not as easy as it sounds. I'm a perfectionist loner by nature and I like to do things on my own. Cooking is also my time to de-stress. I love cooking and it never fails to calm me. However cooking with a chatty five year old is not calming. Our first few sessions drove me mad. I would get tense, sometimes yell, and then Piper was hurt. It was not what I envisioned. But after a few sessions, I learned to just roll with it. Yeah Piper stirs to hard and sends flour flying everywhere. It's okay. It will wash. We can laugh about it, and I can teach her to be more gentle. And now Piper is becoming quite the cook. She can measure, stir and put cookies on the pan. She can shape pizza dough into her own miniature little pizza. And more importantly, she can be mama's baby all over again..or as she said tonight "Not mama's baby but  Mama's big girl."