Wednesdays are crazy. Kidzone (our kids’ church activities) begins at 6pm, which means there is barely a half-hour to get home, eat dinner and go. Did I mention that Wednesdays are insane? All of the boys enjoy helping out in the kitchen, but the older two have taken a particular liking to cooking, and I have let them help more & more over the past year. They’ve proven themselves pretty well with basic cooking techniques, safety, etc. (we’re still working on the clean-up part!) that I thought I’d experiment a bit this semester and give them some more freedom in the kitchen.

Wednesdays are now their day to fix dinner. We plan ahead (usually a week at a time, posted on a white board on the fridge but subject to change), so I know what they are planning to cook. We started last week with a very simple soup dinner. Open the cans, add water, microwave = viola! It was a big hit, especially with No. 5 who is limited to mush right now. For today, they decided to fix a breakfast supper. No. 1 was in charge of toasting waffles, and No. 2 fried up some eggs. One slightly burned fingertip later from getting too close to the skillet, but they managed to present a very yummy dinner that their three younger brothers raved about.

Even with the burned finger, I was proud of him for knowing exactly what to do. He ran it under cold water, then put an ice pack on it. I had to finish his eggs, which dug into our limited time, but it all worked out ok. I was pleased that I could trust them to get dinner started, at least. They are good lil’ chefs-in-the-making, and I look forward to planning more meals with them in the weeks to come!