Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Don't make these chocolate chip cookies

My kids do not know how to use a computer for one simple reason. I never let them within ten feet of mine. They have access to everything else I own - they jump on my bed, use my clothes as dress-up, eat the food off my plate and I am more or less totally cool with it. But hands off the computer.

When we were at my in-laws a few weeks ago, though, Primo's Bubbe gave him the green light to play around on her computer as much as he liked. And he liked. I introduced him to Mo Willems' Website because A. we love Willems in general and B. Primo's been having a really great time learning to read with the help of the Elephant and Piggie books. They are genius.

I left him playing the Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed game and about a half hour later, he comes over to tell me he found a delicious recipe for chocolate chip cookies, just like the dinosaur Edwina makes in Willem's picture book, and could we make them, too, ASAP?

"OK, I'll come take a look in a minute," I said.

"Don't worry Mommy," he replied, "I copied it for you." And he handed me this:


It must've taken him 20 minutes to copy all of those words, dear little soul. What could I say but, "let's preheat the oven!" And voila:




I feel it necessary to add that these were the worst chocolate chip cookies known to man. Not Primo's fault (or mine for that matter). This recipe sucks elephant ass. I will eat ANYTHING resembling a chocolate chip cookie, and I couldn't choke down more than one bite. There s no earthly reason to try and improve upon the chocolate chip cookie recipe printed on the back of the Nestle bag. But besides that, Willems' website is funny and sweet and simple for little kids and I wholly recommend.

What are your favorite sites for the 3-6 year-old crowd? Besides watching Bookflix on the Brooklyn Public Library website, my kids are web novices, but if there was a really great site, I could be convinced to let them take a look.