These may just look like a plate of chocolate chip cookies to you, but last week they saved me. Fashioned from little frozen balls my neighbor Christine gave me months ago, I pulled them from the freezer at the height of a relentless work week that never once felt on track.
On Monday, I cried about a particular project going terribly wrong. On Tuesday, I recovered from that crying jag. On Wednesday, I cried again—this time over a passage in a book. And then it was time to pick up my daughter for the week. I felt emotionally wrung out and yet I take being present with my children very seriously. So, before leaving for school, I pulled the bag of cookie dough balls from the freezer and plunked them on the counter thinking I could enchant her with some sugar.
When we got home she spotted the cookie dough right away and began to dance in the kitchen. My daughter loves many things but chief among them is sweets. I let her know they needed to thaw and then said we could have dessert for dinner this evening. Her eyes bugged out as she skipped away singing, “dessert for dinner…dessert for dinner…DESSERT FOR DINNER!!!”
In the processing of a moment like this, it’s easy for a parent to collapse into negative self-chatter. To judge yourself for not having all the makings of, say, a delicious green salad in the fridge. But I’ve learned this way of thinking is a gigantic waste of time. No one is watching, no one cares. The only point is to check a box and get through another meal.
And so we ate delicious, warm, gooey cookies for dinner. And we all lived happily ever after. Here’s one of Christine’s chocolate chip cookie recipes she swears by. For myriad reasons, I am so very lucky to have her as my neighbor for over a decade.
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What I’ve been up to:
Cooking: Green Chile; Pasta with Sausage and Crispy Sage; making Potstickers
Reading: The Millionaire Next Door; Weird; No Cure For Being Human
Watching: Inventing Anna; Becoming Warren Buffet; The Worst Person In The World
Thinking about: My values; Russia invading Ukraine; post-truth thinking