Our Kitchen Helper

Zach has a passion. We really don't know how this obsession even came about since neither of his parents are even close to master chefs, but Zach is CRAZY about the kitchen. Jenny wonders if it is passed down from her own obsession and the fact that no matter how many times she begged, she was never given a play kitchen as a child. (Sorry, Mom, had to throw that in here.)

Zach refers to any kitchen as "Cook", and literally every time we mention any of his friends who happen to have a play kitchen, he immediately responds with "Cook". "Zach", we ask him, "do you want to meet Brady at the park today?" "Cook", he responds. "Yes, Brady does have a play kitchen at home. Now let's go to the park." We have located all the play kitchens on display in local stores where he is allowed to play, and we were almost banned from the nearby Pottery Barn Kids after we showed up 3 times in the span of 10 days. (Side note: since then, we have not been back in over 6 weeks, and yesterday as we briskly strolled by the storefront on our way to another store, Zach melted down pointing and yelling "Cook! Cook! Cook!"... He has an uncanny sense of direction for a one-year-old....)

Aside from the usual activities like getting his 'help' while we attempt to prepare breakfasts and dinners, we have come up with very clever ways to appease his need for discussing kitchens. We watch the Rachael Ray cooking segment regularly-- and we're really hoping that he's learning a lot so he can become the family chef in a year or two. We also have cut out and compiled some pictures from catalogs of play kitchens so we can talk about every detail of each kitchen.

We might need to chat with Santa about helping Zach explore his cooking abilities with his very own play kitchen. This way we can also stop begging out friends to let us come over and play with theirs!....