Gingerbreading

Every year around Christmastime we buy those gingerbread house/train building kits. It's a nice activity that produces lots of mess, lots of candy, and lots of fun. I'm usually on deadline Monday and Tuesday and I had this crazy idea I'd bring them out for the kids last Monday so they could entertain themselves while I worked. It was crazy because these things are too complicated for a Nobel Prize winning scientist let alone a couple of kids and a frazzled parent. Anyway, I had to help a little more than was ideal. Emily, laughing: "How long have you been a parent?"

Job 1 was outfitting them in a couple of my old T-shirts, because these things are messy. They wear them well.

Job 2 was holding pieces of gingerbread -- house walls, sides of trains, etc. -- while they smeared icing all over everything to glue them together. I've got a bone to pick with whoever decided putting icing/frosting in plastic bags was a good idea. In theory maybe, in practice not so much.

So we were all wearing icing, but ultimately the structures got built. At that point I was able to withdraw and get some work done, and they decorated on their own. Came to find out that Kate is a whiz at gingerbread decorating.

Every two minutes I'd hear Jack praise something that Kate had done. And he wasn't just being nice to his younger sister -- he was actually impressed. I would chime in with the occasional question. Like:


You're letting Kate decorate Santa Claus? "Yes, because her Mrs. Claus is amazing." Or, "How did it go from a big lump of green to THAT?" And "Seriously Kate. You should decorate gingerbread houses for a living. You're like Leonardo DaVinci."

Structures got finished. Kate: "I'm going to go wash my hands for the 100th time!" (Frosting very messy and sticky.) Jack: "There!" He drew a face on his Rudolph with a toothpick. Kate used a marker to draw a train track for her gingerbread train on a piece of cardboard. Houses were built. We all ate candy.

Maybe the appeal of these things is that they create beautiful and messy structures. Maybe it's that they spent 2 hours doing them and I get a little bit of work done. But I think the best thing is to hear them working together, brother and sister, partners in construction. They'll outgrow these things eventually, but not this year.