Watching mama cook

Astrid always want to see what I'm doing. That includes what I'm doing in the kitchen.

If I'm cooking I'll either sit her on the counter to watch, or she'll climb up on her chair in the dining room so she can peek over - like she's doing in the photo above. (Tonight I cooked spaghetti with a fresh turkey/basil/tomato/marinara sauce.)

When I'm washing dishes, I'll put a chair next to the sink so she can crawl up and down at her leisure. I used to put her up on the counter, but that proved to be a hassle because she would want to get down and then want back up over and over again. It's easier to just push a chair up next to me so she can get up an down without any assistance. (Which means I don't have to stop and rinse and dry my hands 10 times in order to get the dishes done.)

When she was an infant she would just cry and cry when I washed the dishes. I would bounce her in her bouncy chair while I did the dishes, and then later when she was a bit older, I put her in her ultra-saucer which I brought into the kitchen so she could play and still see me while I finished up. But still most of the time she cried. Definitely a mistake of a new parents. The whole time she just had a view of my back and couldn't see what I was doing, while I kept turning around to reassure her and let her know that I'd be done in a few minutes - while I rushed like a maniac. If I had it to do all over again, I would have put her in a baby chair and sat her up on the counter so she could see what I was doing. That would have avoided a lot of tears and near nervous breakdowns on my part.

Washing the dishes and cooking still isn't something that I can do leisurely, because Astrid gets bored and wants my attention (i.e., she'll bring in books and ask me to read to her and is not all too pleased that I'm preoccupied with something else), but it is a lot easier now. It's easier in part because I can include her by letting her watch or help me (i.e., pouring ingredients, throwing things away like the ends of vegetables, drying the dishes with a dish towel, and using the Swiffer to clean the floors).