Isabella absolutely loves being in the kitchen. Not because she can eat there, but because she can COOK there. I don’t know where she gets it from. I can cook some decent meals, but mostly it feels like a chore to me. My mother and sister are practically gourmet chefs, but for me, cooking takes too much time out of my busy schedule, and it just doesn’t bring me any enjoyment. I do it out of necessity and nothing else.

A few weeks ago, on Mother’s Day, Isabella presented me with a typical Mother’s Day coupon book. Each page offered a promise of something she would do for me, and she wrote the number of times she would fulfill said promises. It looked a little something like this:

“I will give you a hug 10 times.”

“I will give you a kiss 5 times.”

“I will clean my room 2 times.”

And then…

“I will help you in the kitchen 100 times.”

You can see where this child’s priorities lie.

So the other night, she begged to help me cook a meal of shrimp, potatoes and cabbage (which sounds worse than it tastes, BTW). But it involved sharp knives and hot flames, and that just made me nervous. So, desperate for something to do, she started to wash dishes.

My mouth dropped. Six-year-olds are not supposed to like washing dishes. Forty-six-year-olds don’t even like washing dishes. How did I get so lucky?

I kept adding to the pile of dishes as I prepared more of the food, frequently stating, “Bella, you can stop now. I’ll finish these later.”

“No, mama, I want to wash ALL of the dishes so that you can go to bed early tonight.”

Pinch me.

Sure enough, she washed all of them; she even went back to the sink after dinner to wash our dirty plates. And I did get to bed early that night—9:30, to be exact.

When you’re so used to doing everything by yourself, it’s extra special when someone offers to pitch in. And  when that someone is the precious child you adore more than life itself? Super-duper-quadruple special.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 10:18 am and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.