Mark D Paul

This morning after my workout, I went to grab a towel for the shower. There were only two in the cabinet, so I took the one that looked the most fluffy and absorbent and jumped under the refreshing waterfall. When I finished, I reached for the towel and unfolded it.

It had two pink bunnies with cotton tails on it and a pink border.

All of this was on the side that was concealed by the fold. Normally, I’m pretty good at avoiding the towels that are specifically for my eight-year old daughter. They’re typically shorter and therefore aren’t as desirable for adults to use. That and the ladybugs, frills, and soft pink borders.  But since it was really early and it was folded like it was, I didn’t detect that it was a child’s towel until it was too late. So there I was, a grown man, drying off with a towel with pink bunnies, complete with fluffy cotton tails and a girly pink edge.

I had to laugh at myself.

Then I started thinking about a day when there wouldn’t be any more bunny towels in the closet for me to mistakenly grab. Those towels will be replaced by bigger, fluffier, and more grown-up towels. And the amount of make-up, and hair product, and other girl-type things in the bathroom will double in size. Little girls transform into big girls, and then young ladies, and then women. It all happens rather quickly, like that two-minute movie sequence that skips ahead in the life of a person. If you don’t really pay attention for those two minutes, you can miss it all and end up wondering how in the world they grew up so fast.

These reminders are everywhere. I’m the primary dishes-doer in our home. I enjoy doing it, actually. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a functioning dishwasher, so my siblings and I had to wash every dish by hand. Comparatively speaking, rinsing off some dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher is a breeze. So in my home, when there are dirty dishes in the sink, I step into a phone booth and emerge as Dishes Daddy, a hero who vanquishes all manner of greasy plates, messy cups, dirty utensils, and used water bottles. Not the hero the kitchen needs, but the hero it deserves.  I even have my own logo.

What I’ve noticed over the years is the diminishing amount of little cups in the top rack. A few years ago, it was dominated by bottles, then sippy cups. Now the amount of kid-size cups is just a small percentage of the total. Soon, there won’t be any at all. If you could attach one of those time-lapse cameras over the top of the dishwasher, you could literally watch your children grow up as the cups change in size over time. Bottles grow up into sippy cups, sippy cups age into kid cups, and kid cups mature into regular-sized cups.

Same is true with the closet. Right now, if I go to the laundry room, there’s still a chance that what I would find to hang my shirts and pants on will be little hangers. This could be frustrating, like reaching for a real towel and ending up holding a fluffy bunny one. After all, it’s not real easy to hang my clothes on such small hangers. Doesn’t really work that well. But just like the cups, the little hangers in the closet are gradually fading, giving way to their larger versions.

So I’m grateful I reached for the wrong towel this morning. It was a small, but significant gift. A reassurance that there is still a little one underfoot in my house. Even as my oldest is fully embracing adolescence physically and emotionally, my youngest still lives in the world of dolls and over-sized stuffed puppies, and tinker toys and uno cards and innocent, whimsical, wonderful things. She still drinks out of little cups, her little clothes still hang on little hangers, her towels are still covered with ladybugs and bunnies with cotton tails and soft, pink borders.

The towel was a gentle reminder to wrap myself in the moments of my children’s lives, to live in those moments with them. To be grateful and not annoyed. To be appreciative and not frustrated. To not be so distracted, or unaware, or so busy that these precious days go unnoticed.

Like a pair of pink bunnies hidden under the fold of a towel.

“Our lives are made in these small hours, these little wonders, these twists and turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours, these little wonders still remain.” – Rob Thomas

I like cookies.

It might even be true that I have strong feelings for them.

I believe white chocolate macadamia nut and/or chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven are just further proof of a loving Creator. I picture God, way before He even started creating things, just sitting back, and imagining the day when a human being would eat a cookie for the first time. And He just smiled, knowing how much joy and pleasure it was going to bring, understanding that all of His creation would one day lead to cookies. Cookies right out of the oven. So warm, soft, chewy, delicious. Your mouth is the instrument and that cookie is a master musician, hitting every note perfectly over and over again, a symphony of taste.

I’m making you hungry, aren’t I?

Typically when we bake cookies at our house, we go the easy route. Break and bake, all the way. It’s quick, tidy, no-hassle, and those little squares are perfect for eating raw. You know there’s a caution on the package against eating raw cookie dough? That’s cute. Has there ever been a more ignored warning in the history of humanity? Raw eggs are dangerous, you say? Well Rocky drank a whole glass of them every morning and he was ripped out of his mind. I seem to have less impressive results getting my raw eggs through cookie dough, however.

On Saturday night, my daughter wanted to make cookies. Only this time, it was the real deal. Well, sort of. The cookie mix came in a package, but we had to add flour, egg (didn’t drink any), stir it vigorously, and then roll it out using the kid-sized rolling pin that she has. Cookie dough is sticky and so you have to continually add flour to the process so it doesn’t stick to the pin or your hands or the wax paper you’re rolling it on. I’m pretty sure we ended up with more flour on us than we did on the dough itself. There was flour on our hands, our faces, in our hair, on the cabinets, in the crevices of the hardwood floor. We looked like we had been experimenting in a lab with baby powder and something had gone terribly wrong.

But we continued to prepare the dough, then cut out little shapes of hearts, stars, flowers, spades, clubs. Then re-rolled the dough, added in more flour, getting more flour everywhere, cut out more cookies. We repeated this process until we had a big cookie sheet and her little kid-sized cookie sheet full of raw cookies ready to be baked. I put the first batch in the oven and we started to work on the second batch.

Roll dough, flour everywhere, cut, repeat.

It was a meticulous and thorough process. In a way, painstaking. We were like artists. Well she was like an artist, and I was her apprentice, watching her create something that was both visually appealing and ultimately delicious. The cookie sheet was her canvas, the dough and flour her oils, the rolling pin her brush. She worked, she rolled, she cut, she created. I felt I was in the presence of greatness, like watching a Master at work. She took such great care in the process, went about her task with such joy and precision.

She’s an artist.

In about eight minutes, the first batch was ready. I removed the big sheet and the kid-sized sheet from the oven and placed the second batch inside. Once the cookies were cool, I transferred them to a plate and carried it to the table. She relocated her studio there to begin working on applying icing and sprinkles. I had been standing for over an hour, so I sat down on the chair in the living room and took out my phone. I checked Twitter, played SongPop, got lost in iPhone world. I was pulled out of my daze abruptly by the sound of my daughter’s voice.

“Daddy, what about the cookies?”

I shot out of the chair like it was a catapult, leapt over the large bench in my path, and rushed toward the kitchen. In the brief few seconds between the chair and the oven, I did the math in my mind. By the time I reached the oven, I knew for certain there was no hope. It had just been way too long. I opened the oven door and my worst fears were confirmed.

The cookies were burned.

Actually, burned doesn’t even begin to describe it. They were charred, thoroughly and completely ruined. They didn’t even look like cookies anymore, more like embers from a fireplace. It was a baking failure of epic proportions. I pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven and placed it over the sink. My daughter came in and looked upon what I had done to her work, the carnage of her best efforts. She grabbed onto my leg, as I hung my head over the fallen cookies. We were both stunned, mourning over the loss. It was like I had left the Mona Lisa out in the rain overnight, the paint running until the shape and detail were no longer recognizable. “I’m so sorry,” I kept saying over and over again. “It’s ok, Daddy,” was her constant reply.

There are so many times as parents that we have to forgive our children. They mess up time and again, disobey, disappoint. We require an endless supply of grace and mercy that must be dispensed regularly and generously. Sometimes we wonder if we’re getting anywhere at all. And then there are other times when our children must forgive us. They must reach in to that well deep within their hearts, pull out a little of the grace they have received and give it right back to us.

Parenting is by far the most beautiful and the most difficult experience of my life. In my moments of frustration with my children, when they just don’t seem to be getting what I’m trying to teach them, when they keep messing up, when I have to reach into that grace supply and cover over another mistake, it’s a good thing to remember: sometimes you’re the hero.

And sometimes you burn the cookies.