If you take a can of pumpkin puree and stir in two eggs, a box of vanilla pudding mix, sugar, flour, chocolate chips, salt, and some baking powder, something will happen. I set up the standing mixer, and we just start dumping. It’s more fun this way, we decide. When the mixture looks like cookie dough, we drop spoonfuls on the pan and bake them at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.
They are delicious! If you’re reading this blog for accurate, organized recipes, I apologize. We just needed to not know exactly what was going to happen. I realize how much of parenting joy in the past has been about letting children experiment, but I forget this. We come more alive in the process of investigation and discovery.
I want to add to my parenting vocabulary more and more these statements: “Let’s investigate. Let’s test this. Let’s discover.” Great afternoons begin with the question, “What would happen if. . . ?”
Set up the mixer, and let them start dumping.