Master Chef Minors

Sunday soccer bought an added bonus today. My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law came to watch and bought the girls a cookbook as a present, and ones with lots of vegetarian recipes which is a bonus because I am the world's worst vegetarian mother and I have no imagination.

This meant that Tink spent hours this afternoon picking out recipes and marking them. Buglet was out being a teenager, and Pixie was asleep so some quiet study time for me!

This was great until the Pixie woke up and had a massive tantrum because I had told her that she could make dinner. Oops. Study brain fail!

Peace was restored when Tink agreed that the recipe she had picked out would be a good alternative for Taco Tuesday, and peace reigned again.

Pixie picked home made pizzas for dinner, which to be honest was not in the book, but that is ok.

Super yummy! Tink and Pixie made them together. My vegetarian-baby will not touch meat. Her carnivorous mother does not feel it is really pizza without meat. I know I have said it before, but the fact I ended up with a vegetarian child is really one of life's great mysteries.

Pixie also has a very short attention span ... except when it comes to remembering rules that she likes, when it suits her. Buglet was greeted with a shouted: "You have to do the dishes all by yourself, because we made dinner!!!". Usually this is a major point of contention because Buglet does so much of the cooking, and Pixie does not understand the concept of sharing the workload.

This is especially ironic because we'd had this conversation a very short time beforehand.

Me: Pixie! I told you to pick up that lettuce that you dropped.
Pixie: It wasn't me.
Me: So it just magically appeared after you had salad, but it wasn't you?
Pixie: No. It was Flip-Flop. She dropped when she stole my bowl.
Me: GO AND CLEAN IT UP!
*repeat conversation five minutes later, possibly more than once*
Me: Why are you so much hard work?
Pixie: Are you made at me?
Me: Yes. I shouldn't have to ask you to clean up your own mess so many times.
Pixie: But not very mad. Because you lovells me. I will cuddle you. Then you will not be mad.

Luckily for her the hard work sometimes pays off.

In happy news, I am little bit excited that the little two are deciding to embrace cooking. As super awesome as it is that Buglet loves to cook, I am always worried that the novelty will wear off.

I also am sneakily trying to get them interested in gardening. That will be a good project for them to do with DB when I am not at home. Daddy-daughter time, and I don't have to worry about my garden.

As my final sneaky good parenting moment of the day, I was discussing with my father-in-law how awesome it would be if he could teach the girls how to do stuff on cars. He enjoys working with cars and the girls love helping him do stuff.

The secret of being a good manager is not knowing how to do everything yourself, but knowing how to delegate to the right people. This applies to parenting to right?