Cooking for toddlers is a thankless job

Have you seen these great recipe websites that let you change the number of servings you need and they’ll automatically adjust all the ingredient amounts?  What a fantastic idea!  I just wish they had an option for putting in how many young children you will have around you while cooking so they could adjust how long they estimate it will take you to make dinner. Now that would be helpful.  If I look at a recipe and it tells me it will take 30 minutes to prepare, I then factor in how many times someone will interrupt to ask for a snack, need assistance in the bathroom, have a conflict that requires adult intervention, or will make a mess that can’t wait until after dinner to be cleaned.  And after the hour it now took me to get that dinner ready, my two year-old daughter is likely to look at it and say, “No want it. Crackers, please!” while my two year-old son will pick through the entire plate to be sure I didn’t try to sneak any of the dreaded tomatoes into his meal.  But there are always exceptions- like when my five year-old found me with a bowl of batter in front of the griddle and said, “You’re making pancakes?  You DO love me!”

Being the chef for a family of little people is a taxing and thankless job.  If I were doing it for the praise I thought would follow, I would be sadly disappointed.  Motherhood is such a daily dying to self- there’s no room for ego in a job where success is often judged by convincing a child to eat three bites without gagging of a meal you spent an hour preparing.  I am so thankful God found such a thorough and effective way to teach me to do whatever I’m doing as unto the Lord.  Somedays I have to imagine God’s pleasure in the work I put into the tuna noodle casserole because I’m pretty sure He may be the only one who appreciates the effort.