Molly, my six year old daughter, and I recently made cookies together. She wasn't quite sure what to think of the whole process, especially the long wait for the finished product at the end. By the time we finished, she had dough in her little black curly locks, between her toes, on the top of her nose and in her eyelashes, but her tongue never stopped! Molly's so similar to other people's children that it's hard for me to remember that she's not viewed that way by the public most of the time. My daughter is a registered toy poodle and people generally can't see past the fur.
My Girl isn't tall enough to see the top of the counter, even when she stands on her tippy toes and stretches as far as she can stretch. Her little nose tells her the details of what's going on up there, though. It twitches and sniffs as she moves her head from side to side to get the best whiff of whatever can be whuffed. Molly is only 9 inches tall at her shoulders but when she stands on tip-toe, she's about two feet tall.
Before we even begin the cookies, I ask her if it's a good idea. It's a silly question to ask, really, but how she answers is worth being considered a little silly. I ask her, "Molly, shall we make cookies?" Her whole body stops all motion immediately and she whips her head around with a start. Wide brown eyes stare up at me for a few moments before she races toward me at a flat run and leaps at me. She bounces off my knees in an effort to get me started in the right direction so I don't have a chance to put it off.
So off we go to the kitchen. The first ingredients aren't terribly interesting to her, at least not separately. She might go ahead and eat the butter, but it's not a favorite. While I'm cutting the butter into to the dry ingredients, she paces about my feet, twining in and out, back and forth. After I get out the eggs and peanut butter, she starts talking to me. My best guess is that she's observed people speaking to one another and tries to copy that. Some of her noises actually sound like words but most just sound like she's singing a song of R's. Her grandma calls the noises budgy noises, though I don't understand why. I think I'd call them ar-ar noises, myself.
Each time we make cookies, I give her a little taste of peanut butter after I've spooned it into the bowl. Some people think it's mean to give dogs peanut butter, since it sticks to the roof of their mouths. I figure it must be like eating a Sugar Daddy or a caramel apple for humans. It's so good that it doesn't matter that it sticks! Molly sits at my feet and lick-lick-licks until the goodie is gone. By that time, the recipe is ready for the carob chips. As soon as the first taste is gone, she begins ar-aring me to get another treat. I give her a taste of the dough without the carob in it.
She doesn't eat the dough in one gulp, like most dogs would. Instead, she plays with it a little first. That's how she gets it in her fur and between her toes. Maybe it feels good to have the dough squish in her pads. While she's eating the dough, I pour in the carob chips, but scoop a few out for Molly before I stir them in.
I roll out the dough and get set to cut the cookies into shapes just about the time Molly's done with her taste of goodie. She starts talking to me again, letting me know that she's out of treat, so I grab a chip and make her sit pretty, then drop the chip from about ten inches above her nose. Everything slows way down while the chip falls through the air to her mouth. Once it's close enough, she snaps it out of the air and gobbles it up, then looks to me for some more. I tell her to be patient and finish cutting the cookies so I can get them in the oven.
Molly's not much of one for waiting. She never has been. After she sees the cookies go into the oven, she sniffs at it, to get the current status scent and begs for the rest of the carob morsels to be doled out.
While the cookies are baking, I wander about cleaning up my mess and doing other things. The whole time, she's a half step behind me, but no more than a half step! Every trip to the kitchen to check on the cookies mean that she gets another carob chip, after all.
When they're finished baking, they've still got to set overnight and get crunchy. She doesn't think this is very fair and tells me about it. The kitchen is kept under close observation for the remainder of the day and throughout the night, if she can. The kitchen holds her treats. She wants to make sure no burglar makes it into the house to steal her cookies!
Upon waking in the morning, she bounces off my knees to remind me of the treats in the kitchen. I pull out the cookies and give her one, while I put the rest away in the cookie jar. After she finishes her one cookie, she looks at me disgustedly and muffs at me. She seems to be saying, "One? One! That's all I get? Just one after all that waiting? Grrrr. That's not fair!"
Molly is just like any other spoiled six year old. She just wears a fur coat the year round and is shorter.
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