Our daughter was ill today. That kept her from school, but didn’t prohibit her help in the preparation of tonight’s meal. In fact, both kids were quite instrumental in getting dinner on the table.

Our daughter lost her first tooth last night. While lying in bed, she yanked it out. Soon the galloping footsteps of a very excited girl could be heard throughout the house. She dutifully wrapped the tooth in tissues and put it under her pillow. This morning the tooth was gone from the tissues replaced by four quarters. She carried those quarters around in a special box the whole day.

When dinner rolled around, both kids were quite happy to lend a hand. At times, their competition to have all things the same caused problems – we probably over-mixed the mu shu wrapper batter because they both had to turn on the food processor and, of course, they both had to turn it off.

No matter. The dinner was quite nice. It was slightly more difficult than we were led to believe by the Martha Stewart magazine. Recriminations aren’t necessary when the food is this good. It was so good, in fact, that our daughter ate three pancakes (with plum sauce) by herself.

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