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She looked accusingly at me with those big, brown, second-grade eyes. I knew what she was thinking. My daughter thought I was totally wasting her time trying to explain why subtraction was a necessity of life. She got addition. She had that down pat but in her young mind, if you knew how to add things, why in the world would you want to take them away?

Slices of apple were strewn on the table; browning remnants of my explanation of “whole” and “part”. She was obviously bored. “Cooking!” I thought. My daughter loved to help me cook. I got out the chocolate chips and measured out one cup.

“OK. I’m going to make some cookies. My recipe calls for two cups of chocolate chips but I only have one cup. How many more cups of chocolate chips do I need to buy at the store?”

She perked up with a know-it-all look and matter-of-factly explained, “Enough to make the cookies!”

This month we honor a job that outshines most others – Motherhood. Proverbs 31 tells us about the wife and mother of noble character and that her children and her husband call her blessed. She is no small, wilting flower either. She sews and spins, cooks, buys real estate, runs a business, cares for the poor and needy, provides clothing and warmth for her household, tends to the affairs of her family, is never idle and is always faithful. Whew!! I know I do all of those things! (right) Don’t you? Ok, well actually, the joke in my home has always been that if the smoke alarm goes off, dinner is ready. In my defense, our smoke alarm is very sensitive!

I am an “empty-nester”, between teenagers and grandchildren. I have such wonderful memories of our children growing up and I hope they do too. I want to encourage you, this month and in this time of economic downturn, to slow down the pace of your life to make some memories. Moms – and Dads too – let your children see you cooking for them, encouraging them to help you read recipes, chop veggies, stir broths and knead doughs. Give them the chance to say to each other, “Do you remember walking into the house after school and it smelled like hot, chocolate chip cookies or freshly baked bread? Remember how Mom would let us have the end off of the hot bread all slathered with real butter? Yum.”

If you haven’t done much cooking, make the effort to try at least one new recipe a week and practice the art. Artists know that artwork is 1% talent and 99% knowledge and hard work. The same goes for cooking. Practice makes perfect and even then there are flubs! Look at your table as a big canvas and then paint it with all of the colors that are your dinnerware and your culinary creations! Sit around the table and laugh – and remember that time does fly when you are having fun. Happy Mother’s Day!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Encouraging Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.