At Least She Washed Her Hands

Sugar Bear is used to her neurotic mother reminding her to wash her hands, but recent she has really started to actually "get it". She is able to accurately identify when germs are likely to be on her hands. There are moments that she actually requests a hand washing because, "my hands are germy!" awww......what a cute little germophobe I am raising.



Before helping me make some Autumn sugar cookies the other day, she insisted on a washing her hands. It melted my heart. We thoroughly scrubbed, and set about our task. The last time she rolled out dough was last December, with her Grandma Shirley. For Sugar, it was just like yesterday. She has a memory that defies logic. Throughout our recent cookie making she gave me the blow by blow of what she did "last time!"



This girl takes cookie cutting seriously. Her concentration was steady, and it was hard to even get her attention. As always, I tried really hard to bite my tongue and let her do it "her way." It isn't easy, but I am certain it is way more important than having perfect cookies.



She carefully rolled, cut, moved to the wax paper, and started again. The main assistance I gave was constantly reminding her to try to get more than one cookie cut on the rolled out dough before starting over. She always went right for the middle. She needed LOTS of reminding.



Soon, all the cookies were ready for the oven, and it was past Sugar's bedtime. I assured her that I would bake them all up, and they would be good and ready for the icing in the morning. Reluctantly she went to bed.

The next morning she was eager and ready to decorate. Just between you and me....it was the sprinkles she was really interested in. :) After I whipped up a batch of icing, and tried to get the requested colors, Sugar Bear again washed her hands, then set about frosting her cookies.



Don't you just love this color? tee hee....Sugar Bear had requested brown, and try as I might, I COULD.NOT.MAKE.BROWN! ugh....remind me to buy some nice cake decorating food colorings someday. Sooooooooo....we have olive green. NICE.



Sugar wasn't bothered by the odd color at all. She was over the top elated to FINALLY be allowed to sprinkle. OH.THE.JOY!!!!



She takes her sprinkles VERY SERIOUSLY! Almost as seriously, as washing her hands, in fact.



She experienced many methods of dispensing the sprinkles. She did a little of this....and a little of that. The only constant.......was......the......carefully timed LICK of her palm BETWEEN each cookie. Yup....you read that right. The budding germ phobe has a bit more to learn.



But if you are a grandparent of a sweet little Sugar Bear, with a face like this....you just pretend that the cookie she lovingly made for you isn't teeming with germ upon germ.



If you closed your eyes, and blocked out all thoughts of food bourne illness, they actually tasted pretty darn delicious. Due to a happy accident, this batch of sugar cookies might have been the best I have ever made. I somehow managed to add lemon flavoring to the dough instead of almond flavoring, so I also added lemon flavoring instead of Vanilla to the icing, and let me just say......YUM!!!! You should try it.