Eric has introduced the question "Where is ---?" as in "Where is Daddy?".

Yesterday Eric helped me make chili and cornbread. With the chili his help was mostly pouring and sampling (I think he sampled almost everything that went in with the exception of the meat and the cayenne pepper -- and not for lack of begging to taste the cayenne). He even ate a dried bean, chewed it up and everything. Omnivorous kid is omnivorous. On the cornbread, he had a more active role, taking part in everything except buttering and flouring the pan, and pouring in the final mixture (and dealing with the oven, of course).

Today we made butter cookies with the 'gun'. He helped measure and pour, beat with the mixer, squeeze them out of the gun, and decorate them with colored sugar and tiny sugar balls. He got to lick a beater, lick the spoon, and finish off the sugar after we had decorated (I put a small portion in tiny bowls and we decorated from there, and then he finished the dregs). The cookies ended up wafer-thin because I didn't chill them long enough, but they're yummy all the same.

As he cooks with me, using a recipe, I have started to point out the numbers to him and show him how to match a one-slash-three on the paper with a one-slash-three on a measuring cup. It'll be a long time before he 'gets' it, but he'll be making us dinner before we know it. (mwahahaha!)