My daughter recently began dating a young man with a 19 month old daughter. I will say I was worried about what comes with this emotional roller coaster, but we all come into relationships with baggage, sometimes it is a living being. I'm not being mean about the baggage, we all have it & I'm just realistic.
Our first meeting was at an impromptu, pancake breakfast with the tiny girl and 6 adults. This young man was so attentive to his daughter. While she was beautiful, happy, hungry and very well spoken at such an early age, that was nothing compared to the love they had for each other. It was a lesson for me. Not being a "judger" is hard. However, this father/daughter duo melted my heart and made me realize that we can all conquer our negative expectations.
Honestly, I have not been around a little girl, under these circumstances, since my 22 year old daughter was that age. Not just myself, but the other five people at the table sat in "awe" of her awesomeness. We forget how time stands still when a tiny toddler is in our midst.
In a glow of amazement, we hung on every word she repeated, which we all repeated back to her. The loving looks at her father, the way she wolfed down the silver dollar pancakes (which she was rather amazed with), we adults couldn't stop looking at each other with innocence in our own eyes. The memories of our own toddlers and how our hearts went back to those times. It was a magical experience.
Time stood still. For that 45 minutes at the table, there was a serenity and hopefulness that I haven't experienced in quite sometime. I also came to the conclusion that my daughter has made the right decision to be drawn to this man and his little girl. The love and devotion he has for his little girl is genuine and is a register to his character. How hard is it to experience this without being warmed to the soul? I had two daughters, so my experience was unique to me and very personal. I know everyone at the table had similar memories of their own toddlers and it moved us all. All those moments of hope that slip by as we get older. We forget so easily...it was fleeting and so long ago!
I officially refrained from being a "Judgy McJudgerson", which, I don't know if it was my doing. I was prepared for judging but it was organic because of who they were as individuals. We can't let our feelings get in the way of accepting our adult children's choices. We can only be there in a supporting role.
My supporting role that morning was making silver dollar pancakes, bacon and serving some fruit on the side! Perfect for cooking for a crowd, these diminutive flapjack sisters of a regular pancake are easy because they are quick to cook and easy to eat. I was never a fan of the "syrup" so they are a perfect candidate for eating "as is" or with jelly, powdered sugar or fruit with whipped cream.
My family looks at cooking & eating with each other as an act of love. Pancakes equal love. Just sayin'
My secret to Silver Dollar Pancakes:
Use favorite recipe or mix
Add:
Cinnamon Sugar to taste
Vanilla to taste (I use Mexican Vainilla)
Other choices: add fruit or chocolate chips to batter or to first uncooked side of pancake while cooking... this allows individual tastes to be administered in each batch
Cook rounded tablespoon of batter in butter (schmear pan with butter before each batch of pancakes this is better than the schmear of butter after cooking).
These small pancakes cook fast so keep your eye on them!
Bacon is cooked in oven at 425 degrees in a cast iron skillet...bacon perfection...no greasy, smoking kitchen.
RSS Feed