These days, it seems I can't do much without a little Someone asking to help me. Lila has a favorite kitchen stool that she carries from station to station, so she can reach the countertops.  Watch your toes.

She asks to feed Charlotte all the time, and she can put the spoon in her mouth, but I'm always afraid she'll jab it in there a little too "helpfully", so I offered a compromise.  Lila's doll shares the table with us, and eats when Charlotte does.

She can unsnap a diaper faster than I can.  She always knows where the wipes are (likely because she carried them off in the first place).  She picks out her own clothes 90% of the time, and I let her.  She often brings me snacks or juice boxes (one for her, and one for me).  And she's always forgiven when she sneaks a cookie for herself but brings me one too.

She asks me on a daily basis, "Can we bake?"  She's darn good at cracking eggs and she loves to add flour to the mixing bowl.  And always the chocolate chips.  Always.  She sneaks a few of those throughout the process too.

This particular day, we were baking Peppermint Crinkle Cookies.  Yes, it was around the holidays.  And yes, I know it's March now.  I've meant to share these with you every month since.  So today, I hope you'll enjoy this little morning of baking with my big girl.  My helper.

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What "I Wanna Help," Looks Like

I had already made the dough the night before, and we were rolling the cookies into balls and dipping them in confectioner's sugar. Never a girl to stay clean for long, she had sugar all over her face about thirty seconds into it.

I love the softness of this one.

The hardest part is waiting for them to bake.  Such long minutes for a little girl.

And of course, the finished product.  They were delicious!

I always remember Mom letting us help her cook, even when we were very little, and very messy.  She would let us crack eggs and quietly pick out the shells without saying a word to us about them.  I remember dumping flour and sugar into the bowl, holding the electric mixer, scraping the last bits of batter from the bowl into the pan.  I know that by letting us "help", it made her time in the kitchen that much longer, and her cleaning the kitchen back up took that much longer as well.  But she always let us help anyway.

I hope that when Lila grows up and "be's a mommy" as she calls it, that she will remember these days with me and let her little ones help her too.

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Please continue on our blog carousel to the extremely talented Wendy Vonsosen  | San Francisco Bay Area Photographer.  Wendy's lifestyle work is so insightful, and I can't wait to see what wonder she's captured for us this month.