Confidence and Conversation

Last weekend, Dominic and I made some waffles. He is coming along quite nicely with his class, "Breaking an Egg Correctly into a Bowl 101." He is to the point of me just lightly tapping the middle of the egg and just barely opening it and then he does the rest.  When he put the eggs into the mixing bowl, he said, "I did it myself!" I foresee him "graduating" from that class soon and "enrolling" in my class "Pouring Ingredients into a Measuring Cup 101." As Dominic cooks and bakes alongside me more, I see his confidence and conversation increase. He was dispensing quite a bit of commentary as we were making the waffles.  Since I still pour the ingredients into the measuring cup for him, when I accidentally spilled some flour on the kitchen counter, Dominic told me, "that was too much!" and "what a mess!" I LOVED that he spontaneously told me that. Last night, since neither the hubby or Lauren were around at dinnertime, I decided it would be a good opportunity for Dominic to try my class "Pizza Making 101."  For the past couple of months, before we even start pulling ingredients out of the fridge or the pantry, I say, "what is the first thing we do before we start?" He says back, "wash your hands." Last night, I accidentally said, "you need to wash your yams!" Dominic thought that was pretty funny.  It kind of was :) Since he was wearing his new baseball shirt, I attempted to get him to wear an apron. Let's just say that didn't go over too well.  Little by little, I have been giving Dominic more and more responsibility.  He sprayed the pizza pan, helped make the homemade crust, spread out the pizza sauce and sprinkled on the cheese.

 

I showed Dominic how to turn on the oven light and he crouched down and looked through the glass on the front of the oven and said, "yummy!" When the pizza was done cooking, we had a little carpet "picnic" and flipped on the Food Network.

I asked Dominic, "what's the name of the show that Mommy likes to watch that starts with the letter "C?"  He immediately said, "Chopped!"  That's my boy :)  When the hubby finally got home, he asked me what we had for dinner.  When I told him that we had homemade pizza, he pulled out the two pieces that were left over out of the fridge, popped them into the microwave and ate them both! Since the pizza was such a big hit, my goal by the time June ends is that Dominic be able to make it by himself with minimal help from me and to make sure we save at least one piece for Lauren to "sample!"