When Breakfast Isn't Served.

Before I had kids I would have been mad at myself for making such a simple and stupid mistake that I happen to do once in a while when cooking; misreading the ingredient amount.

This morning I was going to make beautiful waffles for Thing 1 and Thing 2. I carefully read the ingredients and set every thing but the water out, because I knew at least one of them would want to help.

Now what makes me do a famous forehead slap is that I hear a voice in the back of my head saying, "ummm... Don't you think that's wrong?" and yet I completely ignore it each and every time.

This morning Thing 2 and I were measuring the oil (before the water, so the measuring cup gets a jump start on getting cleaned), and I read it as 1 1/2 cups.

Yep! Whole time we're doing this that voice is screaming in the back of my head, "NOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!" as I pour the volatile mix in.

I recognize the mistake when I started mixing it and realized I have not added water and the mix is a weird color.

Insert forehead slap.  

Oh My... dead. I just killed the waffles.

So instead of just throwing it out, I explained to the kids that I made a huge mistake and we weren't having waffles after all. I interrupted their beginnings of whining that sounds like a jet engine warming up, and about as loud too, and said that we were going to do an experiment. What happens to a waffle when you put in too much oil?

Now they were hooked.

(muahahaha)

I poured in the batter and started cooking. They waved their hands over the steam to draw in the delicious sent of waffles cooking, these smelled like funnel cake cooking from all the oil, and eagerly watched. We peeked in once in a while to make sure it was actually cooking. Once it was a beautiful golden brown I got the fork to remove the waffle. One child thought it would come out, the other thought it would fall apart. And the result was...

It crumbled! 

'

Victory! The experiment worked, and a hypothesis was quickly quickly formed from each child. Why did it fall apart? What is bonding? Can we still eat it? And a slew more of questions.

What was once a terrible mistake, out to ruin breakfast for very hungry tummies, turned into an experiment and life long knowledge (or at least an awareness) of why we follow directions exactly when we bake or cook anything.

And the fried eggs and toast wasn't a bad substitute either. 

With Love,

Emily

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