The Saturday Pancakes

Penny asked to make pancakes on her own this morning. She is three.

I watched her carry the measuring cup to the flour with more seriousness than most adults bring to most things. She spilled some. She scooped it back up with her hands and put it in the bowl anyway. I didn’t say anything.

She is at the age where helping means slowing everything down by twenty minutes and the kitchen looks like a flour bomb went off and the pancakes are lumpy and slightly wrong. And somehow they are also the best pancakes.

I thought about the fact that she will not remember this Saturday. She is three. But I will. And one day I’ll tell her.

We ate them with maple syrup and she said I made these to Pam with a look on her face that I want to keep forever.