Always Look Again

One of our Kindergarten Room Moms asked me if I could make/buy cookies in the shape of a star as one of the kids' daily surprises from St. Nicholas.  Wanting to be the dependable mother, I texted back with a prompt, "SURE!...how many?!"  Since I have to keep this from Jacob, I opted for the purchasing of these delectable treats. I was super proud of myself for adding more service hours to my parenting bag and started shopping early.  Don't you know that these grocery stores do carry Christmas cookies quite early, and offer stockings, reindeer, candy canes, Santa Claus, and dreidels, but NO STARS! And the round packaged sugar cookie dough must have all been purchased by the National Cookie Convention or something outrageous because there was none in Baton Rouge!

After calling a few bakeries, I learned a few things more about cookies, but none that were financial or quantifiable acceptable.  At my wits end, my phone rings. It's Auntie, who says in a whisper, "Sorry, I dialed the wrong number."
Since she was on the receiving end of my call, I decided to unload my cookie plight on her.  With that she says, "No problem...I'll go to the grocery store and send some cookie dough with your Granny when she comes to your house tomorrow."

No doubt my Guardian Angel Nik made her mother dial my phone incorrectly so that the situation could be solved. 

Since all of this had taken place while Jacob was at school, Jacob didn't know a thing about the secret cookies or the problem-solving skills I obtained. That afternoon when I was fixing Jacob an after-school snack, he asks, "Mom, when are you going to bake me some Christmas cookies?" 

Really, Nik?  I pounded my fist in the air knowing full well that she put that thought in Jacob's head.

So now, I have to make three dozen cookies secretly and one dozen with Jacob.

While we were at the grocery store yesterday, I spotted ONE lonely roll of plain cookie dough in the store.

Really? Looks like I AM going to have to make all these cookies afterall!

As I am unloading groceries, I remembered...the rolling pin!  Granny Leier had bought me a rolling pin to make her German kuga, but it still had the factory sticker tag on it. Little by little, I would sit down and pick at this tag that refused to come off in one piece.  Today, I had to get it completely off so that Jacob could use it. As I sat in the middle of my kitchen floor, with grocery bags still around me, and with two kids asking me what I was doing every five seconds, I picked away the pieces.  Just when I was hot and heavy into the picking, my phone rang...

"Whatcha doing?" asked Oma.

I'm making Granny Leier and Nik laugh at me right now is what I'm doing! 

After explaining to Oma all the details of my plight,  she offered a quick solution of soaking the pin in warm, soapy water. Well, I would except the little piece of tag I just tore directed me NOT to do that!  So onward I went until finally it was done.

And since this was Jacob's set of cookies, he was excited to bake them.

I showed him how to add the flour, how to knead the dough, how to use the rolling pin, how to use the cookie cutter, how to gently lift the cookie from the counter to the cookie sheet, how to icing the cookie, how to use sprinkles, and how to be proud of what great work we had done.

My hair was a mess, my clothes were a mess, my kitchen floor had flour and sprinkles on it, the cookies were something I wouldn't dare share with anyone else, but it was one of my proudest moments as a mother. So, as I stood in the middle of the kitchen looking at the mess we had created, I felt a few taps on my back...from my two Guardian Angels.