Improvise, Improvise As Fast As You Can

Grandma. A trove of kisses and hugs and endless patience.

Grandma. A cornucopia of surprises and treats and toys and little gifts.

Grandma. Purchaser of a gingerbread men kit, sent home with Abbey and Dylan after their night with Grandma and Grandpa.

Grandma. Ignorer of directions.

run, run, run as fast as you can

you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man

poor Gingerbread Man

Because while rolling hunks of fondant to a specified thickness and delicately cutting icing into darling clothing items for gingerbread boys and girls may work for some craftier moms, the idea of it sent me running for the kitchen and my filled-with-chemicals food coloring.

I push the fold-out flyer of directions, thick with restrictions, to the corner of the counter with the rest of the junk mail and other recycling.

I may not be a whiz with pastry knives, but I can whip up a batch of buttercream icing and a plan B while singing the Gingerbread Man song and tossing packets of fondant into the recesses of my baking cupboard.

Fondant is a foreign word to Abbey, but she knows the sweetness of frosting, dipping a finger into the stainless steel bowl before I have the chance to divide and color the creamy, sugary peaks into festive colors.

Dylan knows he wants his chair in the kitchen with his sister and me, fascinated by the tiny candy balls that tinkle into ramekins, chasing them across the floor when they tumble from his grasp.

Without the burden of cutting out dresses and itty bitty scarves, we giggle while digging Abbey’s tea party knives out of her toy kitchen goodies, though Dylan prefers working with his own utensils.

Without the danger of pastry knives or kitchen shears, they spread icing with plastic knives, without my assistance or my nervous hovering.

Small hands frost and taste test and decorate with whimsy, choosing colors and licking fingers and imagining their creations rival those on the box.

Which they do, of course, when seen through a mother’s love-tinted lens.

We may have ended up with this:

instead of this:

But we had this:

and this:

An afternoon craft without tears or impatient tantrums or gritted teeth.

Proving that sometimes the best directions are the ones you don’t follow.

(Please don’t tell my kids that!)