sprinklefingers

over the last week something strange has started to happen: instead of playing, my 3 year old kid wants to help me make dinner. and not in a 3 year old way. he wants to create dinner. with me.

so, i’ve had him focus on a nightly fruit salad. he selects the fruit. we wash it together. i show him how to peel it. i steady his hand on a knife as he chops it. he arranges it in a bowl (quite beautifully.) then we move on to whatever else is on the menu. from shredding cheese to whisking peanut sauce to measuring grits to dressing a beet salad, he’s in there helping me.

i’ve posted before about how interested he is in kitchen-stuff. and in general he is. but usually never at dinner time because during the time it takes me to prep dinner he usually has the undivided attention of his father…which means they can work on choreographing and blocking out scenes from the julie andrews/star wars hybrid musical he’s been working on (yes, really.) you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a 3 year old holding a darth vader doll singing ‘my favorite things’ in an english accent.

anyways, this week something changed. his dad offered to, basically, do anything he wanted and his response was, ‘no thanks. i have to help mom make dinner.’

i asked him for the fruit salad recipe. below is, word for word, how he explained the making of it:

little sprinklefingers fruit salad

first of all you need to have favorite fruits. do you have those?
here are some - you could even go to the store:

cantaloupe
apples
pears
strawberries
blueberries
pineapple
kiwi
bananas
oranges
grapes

okay, now it’s dinnertime and you make a fruit salad:

1. um. um. put the fruit in a bowl. actually, no. you need to wash them first.
2. wash the ones you like and put them on the counter.
3. uh, ah. um. you peel the stuff like the kiwi. then you cut the fruit you like in small pieces.
4. you put those pieces in a bowl, probably the cantaloupe first with strawberries on top - and then - there you go!
5. basically, you cut it and you eat it.
6. in the summer you can eat it outside.
7. don’t take my picture.*

*yes, i tried and he shut me down.