A few of my favorite things

Today was my 3 year old son's first day of preschool! While I was feeling nervous and apprehensive about preschool starting he was all ready to go the minute he got up this morning. We had a little preschool monster on our hands in fact, "Let's go to preschool now!" he demanded. In response I pointed out he didn't have any underwear on and they weren't open yet so it wasn't the most opportune time to go. After getting a lunch packed and the appropriate clothes on we headed out to preschool with Led Zeppelin as our companion. It was a quick and successful drop off with big kisses and hugs and I waited till I was a few blocks away to shed my tears. As nervous as I was for him and overwhelmed with "holy moly my kid is growing up" feelings myself this moment is one of my favorites.

Another thing to top my favorites list is baking. This week while waiting for preschool to start my son and I had a few extra days together so one day we decided to bake some cookies. My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe is none other than the Nestle Toll House recipe. As we were gathering ingredients I discovered that the bag of chocolate chips I had purchased a few weeks before had two thirds fewer chips in it than when I bought it. Hmmmm… I sense some taste testing went on without my knowledge. So instead of scrapping the plan I found another one of my favorite items, Trader Joes roasted almonds, with 50% less salt. I don't pay particular attention to my sodium intake, I just really like these almonds and find that they are just salty enough. Since I was going to need chopped almonds I got out one of my favorite kitchen tools, an antique nut chopper that my Mother-In-Law gave me. This tool is easy to use and clean and safe (with supervision) for the little ones to use. We added about a cup of the chopped almonds along with a third of a bag of chocolate chips.

My newest favorite kitchen tool is the BeaterBlade for the Kitchen Aid mixer. It scrapes as it mixes and makes the cooking making process a breeze.

Next we scooped the cookies which brings me to the last favorite on my list today – the cookie scooper. When I worked in commercial bakeries we used large cookie scoopers to make giant cookies, it has only been in the last few years that the general public has known the wonders of the scooper. One Christmas I was lucky enough to receive two of these cookies scoopers (thank you sister and sister-in-law) – so now when I scoop cookies my 3 year old helper can scoop too. It is a fast and easy process that requires little coordination.

My real favorite thing in my memory was baking cookies with my wee one. This week has taught me that they grow up fast and I want to try to remember every moment of snuggling and baking I can.