I never worry about finding something for her to do, because given a few free moments, she makes up a project….often wildly imaginative and creative, but not necessarily something anyone else would ever have thought to do.
So I wasn’t terribly surprised Thursday afternoon to come home and find Tracy on the computer, Jeremiah doing homework, both in the living room, and Grace in the kitchen with every possible baking ingredient out on the counter. She had flour(s) eggs, milk, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, granulated birch sugar, a bunch of spices and god knows what else. There was a bowl on the counter with a rather nasty looking mixture inside, something akin to what you get mixing a bit of milk with 4-5 rotten, black bananas.
“Grace, What are you making now,” I hesitantly asked. The answer was of course, “I wanted to make something, don’t worry, I’m almost done”
Tracy came out and helped her set the oven to a good temperature and time and they put the glass bread pan with “the mixture” into the oven. Then they cleaned up and Tracy and I made dinner and the stuff just cooked away, somewhat forgotten.
As we got ready to sit down for dinner, the girls checked “the stuff” and it seemed done so they pulled it out to let it cool. I guess somebody forgot to grease the dish, so after it cooled a bit, there was a minor struggle to get the bread-ish creation out, but it finally popped out onto the rack without any visible harm.
That’s when Grace told us she had made a card and this bread for a little friend in class who had broken her arm the day before. We thought maybe someone should taste it before it was given as a gift, so Tracy cut an end off and quartered it, and we all slowly picked up our pieces, sniffed a bit and took a bit. Holy Moy and what a surprise!! It was delicious… kind of like a lighter, fluffier zucchini bread in color and it tasted a lot like ginger bread. I was very impressed and amazed. We asked her what what she put in it, but she didn’t really know…”a bunch of stuff” - Zen baking at its finest!
Grace never ceases to amaze me. xoxo
