Fridays Are So Pleasant

"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls off a string."

-Montgomery

I'm pretty sure that I look forward to Fridays even more than my children do. Because I am not burdened with homework, or reading minutes, or YW activities, or music lessons, I try to at least once a month, make some cookies for my kids on a Friday afternoon. Without fail, while I am gleefully creaming butter and adding flour to the mixer, one or more of my children perches herself or himself at the bar and begins to talk. 

I wish that this happened more often, but the frenzied state that I am in on weeknights as I try to prepare dinner is not always the most inviting atmosphere for my children. I usually have exactly one hour to get dinner on the table before the next activity. And I'm afraid that the most frequent words out of my mouth are,"Sabrina, get out your violin and start practicing! Jonah, I need you to pick either reading or a math worksheet to get started on! Spencer, what kind of homework do you have tonight? Jessica, will you hurry and tidy the living room before your cello student gets here, so that I don't have to be completely humiliated?!!"

But Fridays are different. There is something about a warm cookie and an unhurried mother that just opens up those lines of communication. This time it was Sabrina perched at the counter, snatching pieces of dough as she described her day and how much she loves her English teacher because she is witty and funny in a classy-adult sort of way, and how Sabrina appreciates that because she is witty and funny in a classy-teenager sort of way. It was easy for me to listen as I mindlessly punched heart shapes out of the soft dough and took in the pleasant chatter, adding my two bits now and then, but mostly listening, and snacking on more than my fair share of dough.

Being the only child present when I pulled out the recipe box meant that Sabrina got first dibs on the remnants of dough in the mixing bowl, a most coveted position to be in. I convinced her to save the beater as well as a few pieces of cookie dough for her brother who would soon be returning from play practice. He arrived in time to watch me pipe the fluffy frosting onto the cookies.  

We all enjoyed a cookie together. I might have shed a tear or two as I took a bite, because this may have been the best batch of sugar cookies I've ever made. Sabrina and Spencer concurred. It may have been that I finally got the baking time just right on the cookies, or that I nailed the vanilla to almond extract ratio in the frosting. But something tells me that it was simply the pleasantness of an uneventful afternoon with my kids that made everything taste just perfect.