Run, run as fast as you can

Louis doesn't want to climb a beanstalk.

And he's never sounded interested in Goldilocks, though he'd like to meet the Baby Bear.

But several times he has asked when we could make gingerbread men. He loves that story, even though the gingerbread man comes to a rather sad end--for the gingerbread man, not for the fox.

Ever since Grandma dug out a gingerbread man cookie cutter, Louis has added a sense of urgency to his request. I have been dragging my feet a little--most days I'm just happy to get dinner on the table, so extra baking takes a bit of a back seat--but this weekend we were mainly housebound with the boys' colds, so I had no excuse.

We made a big bowl of gingerbread dough and got started.

I was happy to find a recipe that didn't need eggs. I knew some of the dough would run as fast as it could into Michael's mouth. And it did.

If the purpose of this activity was to see how many M&Ms, raisins, and chocolate chips Michael and Louis could eat in one sitting, we can call our cooking baking an unqualified success.
 

They downed the M&Ms, and occasionally put a few on the gingerbread men.

Then they ate those off too.

"I want to use raisins instead," Louis told me.

And so the cookies got a facelift--and our sons sampled a few raisins themselves.

After we ran out of space on the cookie sheets for the men, we made an L for Louis, an M for Michael, and a cookie with a B for Baba.

Then before anyone could eat any more of the decorations, I whisked the sheets into the oven.

The boys kept an eye on the gingerbread men.

After all, the cookie character in the story jumps out of the oven before he starts his run.

All of ours stayed put. Even the gingerbread snakes.

After dinner, I let each boy have a gingerbread man.

Louis was delighted with his, and they conversed back and forth for a while before he asked to trade it for a gingerbread snake.

Michael ate more of his than his big brother did, but neither one of them ate more than a few bites.

I noticed no one has asked for more gingerbread.




So we have lots leftover, and no sign of any of it running away--or even walking. Now if we could just find a hungry fox.