A Pinch of Patience

My kitchen is covered in powdered sugar. This is a result of my nine-year-old learning how to use the stand mixer while, at the same time, learning the meaning of the phrase, “add sugar gradually.” I’m trying not to think about how I will wipe the sugar dust from the lighting fixtures, and focus instead on the fact that she is gaining some good, old-fashioned, trial-and-error, learn-from-your-mistakes kind of knowledge.

But oh the powdered sugar, it is everywhere. And I want so very badly to swoop in there, push her aside, and finish up the homemade frosting while simultaneously cleaning the countertops, the floors, the walls. I could be done in a matter of minutes: cake frosted, kitchen cleaned, and everything neatly back in its place so we can move on to the next task at hand. I hate to admit, it is painstaking to stand back and watch things unfold at this slower, messier pace.

Of course, I have many years of mom-tasking (that’s multi-tasking, times 100) experience to credit for my ability to make quick work of such things. She, on the other hand, is just starting to find her way in the kitchen, in her life, in the world…

Baking is her current endeavor. She discovered a children’s competitive baking show on Netflix, and two or three binge-watched seasons later, here we are, elbow-deep in all-purpose flour and egg whites. We agreed that for a summer homeschool elective, she would learn to bake from scratch. So, once a week, she chooses the recipe and I supply the ingredients (and a willingness to step away and trust her to figure it out on her own).

So far, it is going pretty well. We get treated to a weekly dessert inspired by cooking shows of the Food Network caliber. She is learning baking terms I’ve never even heard of, and putting them to practice in the most delicious of project-based learning experiences. Everybody wins! Well, except for my kitchen cupboards, which might never recover from the meringue splatter of week one.

And this is where I am learning, too. I’m learning to let the little things like sugar dusted floors and sticky cupboard handles go for a bit while she figures out how to manage the kitchen. I’m learning to make peace with the mess, while she finds peace in her process. I’m learning that the next task at hand is not nearly as important as the current one, and that no amount of wiped-clean counters is worth the cost of a face wiped clean of its confidence. She will get to the point where she can multitask as well as any of those celebrity bakers, if only she is allowed the time to get there on her own, and given the gift of someone who believes in her enough to let her do it.

This is a gift I pray I can give to her, the gift of my patience, and in return, the ability for her to practice the same. 

And the brownies are pretty good, too.

Christine Gauvreau is a wife, a mother and a writer who is ever grateful to God for calling her to homeschool. In addition to teaching her own children at home, she teaches creative writing to other homeschoolers in a co-op setting, as well as through lessons she designed for Schoolhouse Teachers. Christine shares some of her creative ideas, along with stories about her family’s homeschooling journey at Rubytree Academy (rubytreeacademy.com).