The kids really love helping their mom cook – particularly pancakes. They stand on chairs so they’re up high enough to reach and help her add ingredients and mix everything together. The best part, however, comes as she is putting the pancakes on griddle.

That’s when they get to pick what they want to add to each pancake – dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, shredded coconut, peanut butter chips. They get to pick.

The other afternoon I came down to the kitchen to see N (the three year old) popping chocolate chips in his mouth while his mom was cooking. Naturally, I intervened. “Hey big guy,  Don’t eat too many. You’ll get sick.”

“He’s not,” his mom answered. “He’s helping.”

Hmph. It certainly looked like he had been eating the chips. I backed off and watched from a discrete distance.

While I watched, he continued to take chips out of the bag and put them in his mouth. After he had a couple in there, he swished them around a bit and then took them out of his mouth and dropped them in the pancake.

Mmm… pancakes.