Pancakes!
Mark got up early, sneaking into the kitchen. He wouldn’t dream of starting the day’s project alone, but he wanted to make sure everything was ready first. Mostly he wanted to make sure that his child-proofing was fresh. The boys were amazingly skilled at getting into trouble when things got rolling.
He heard a gasp from the hallway. “Markie you started?” He could hear the betrayal in the voice. He tries to get up and explain, but he’d still had his head in the cupboard and only succeeded in lightly dazing himself. He heard another gasp, and the sound of tiny feet scampering away. Nemio was probably going to bring in the muscle. Mark pulled out the pan he was reaching for and rubbed the bump on his head. The patter of little feet had multiplied on the way back. “Drawer hurt Markie!”
That sounds about right. Mark was able to get it closed just before it would have been mercilessly savaged by a small child wielding—what was it this time? A butter knife. Mark scooped up his avenger before the door was dealt justice for daring to be dangerous. “I’m okay, I just bumped my head a little. I’m fine. And I haven’t started yet.” He picked up a spatula, offering it as a trade to try and bribe the knife from Prikriti.
Pri accepted the side-grade and waved his new weapon around. “You boys ready to do pancakes?”
“PANCAKES”
He didn’t often get a chance to cook with the boys, but he treasured the times he could. He set Pri on a stool. He was about to pick up Nem to do the same but noticed something missing. “Where is Glava?”
“Glava still sleeping.” Mark still wasn’t sure what the little stuffie was actually supposed to be, but Nem loved the little thing and Mark would never hear a word about his son’s favorite toy. It was nice that he wouldn’t have to clean pancake batter out of it though.
“We’ll just have to do an extra good job without him then.” Mark reached down and got Nem up on a stool as well. He got the big metal bowl out and divided up the duties. “Alright Pri, you get the flour. We need you to fill this little cup up with flour three times and dump it in the bowl. You can use the spatula to level off the top.”
“Nem, you’re in charge of pouring milk, up to this line here, and then carefully opening this egg into there too. I’ll work on the other stuff. Ready?” He got little cheers from his sons as they all started. Mark split his activities between the remaining ingredients, handling the small amount of sugar, butter, and making sure to sneak a cup of chocolate chips into the bowl when he was sure neither of them were looking. Satisfied for a moment, Mark turned around to plug in the stand mixer.
While Mark was distracted, Pri noticed that there was a yellow bag on the counter that hadn’t been there earlier. Chocolate! Pri set the spatula down for a second to reach into the bag with both hands and dump as much as he could into the bowl. He added more flour on top to try and cover it up. He had just enough time to sneak the bag over to Nem’s area, wanting to share the chocolate bounty.
Mark picked up the mixing bowl. “Perfect, let’s get this mixed up. Good job with the dry ingredients Pri.” He ruffled Pri’s hair a little before turning to fit the mixing bowl into the mixer.
Nem had saw Pri move the bag of Chocolate over. He reached in and tried one, making sure it was still something he liked. Satisfied with the results, he dumped the rest of the bag into the cup with the liquid ingredients. He scampered off the stool trying to hide the empty bag in the trash.
Mark knew his way around his own kitchen, even with his unpredictable helpers; he didn’t need to turn his head to reach behind him and grab the measuring cup the liquid ingredients were in. He tried to pat his Liquid Ingredient Helper for his efforts, but found that the little scamp had vanished. As he poured the cup into the mixing bowl he turned, trying to see where Nem had ended up. He saw a head just barely peeping up over the counter. “Good work Nem!”
He lit the stove and let the mixer run, keeping an eye on the boys as they got distracted and started playing. After the pan was hot enough he poured out the batter for the first pancake... Or at least tried to. He scraped some off with a spatula, hearing it clink a little when it hit the pan. Looks like there might have been a few too many chips in that one. The smell of cooking pancakes was quickly overpowered by the smell of almost-burnt chocolate. He flipped the pancake, realizing just how heavily dosed with chocolate it had been when he saw the bottom.
There was a noise like marbles being dropped and a pair of giggles. He saw a small black object roll past the corner. He looked at the counter where the rest of the bag of chips was—er, had been. He looked back at the one on the ground. Pri walked over and tried to pick it up a few times before crouching down and trying to eat it off the floor. He looked back at the batter still in the bowl. A creeping suspicion was arising.
With the first pancake cooked as well as it could be, Mark scraped another into the pan and walked around the corner, where the bottom handful of the previously full bag of chips was scattered on the floor, being either stepped on and smeared around or eaten by his sous chefs. He laughed, too busy enjoying the moment to worry about the cleanup.
The pancakes were so rich with chocolate that none of them could make it through more than half of one, even without syrup. It was still a great start to the day.
