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“We’ll need three cups of flour, ok? Can you measure that out for me?”“Momma, I wanna have a turn, I wanna mix it!” “Hold on a second, Nona, you’ll need a chair for that. We’re still getting the ingredients ready to-” Edith looked up from the cookbook as a chair scraped its way across the kitchen floor, guided by her tiny, pajama-clad child. She had no idea how someone so tiny could make so much noise, especially after she’d told the girls they had to be as quiet as possible today. She looked to her older daughter with an amused grin.“Sylvia, will you help your sister with the chair? We don’t want Dad to wake up early.”“Yeah, I got it. Hey, Lonnie!” Sylvia put the measuring cup down and walked over to Lonnie. She was a few years older than her sister and, by some quirk of genetics, had enough height at age ten to tower over her little sister. “Get on the chair. I’ll push you!” Well, asking Sylvia to help had almost worked, she figured as Lonnie climbed onto the chair and clutched the arms with all her might. That was a partial victory as far as she was concerned. The scraping sound of chair legs on wooden floors filled the kitchen once again. “Let’s push her over towards the counter, ok, V?”“Yeah, Mom, I know. It’s just, the chair!” Sylvia grunted and turned the chair away from the counter and into a loop around the kitchen. “The chair has a mind of its own!”Edith shook her head as the kids made a lap around the kitchen. She’d ended up with two goofs for kids. It was times like this that made her wish she kept a camera around at all times. This would make a cute picture for the family album. Oh well, she’d never been great at photos anyways. No point in starting up the habit now, she supposed. “Well, see if you can’t wrangle that chair over here, ok? I need my special helpers over here if we’re going to get these pancakes done before Dad wakes up.” She smiled as Sylvia guided the chair back towards the counter, her attention refocused on the task at hand. Good. They could get this Father’s Day breakfast back on track. It was the first year Lonnie was old enough to help, so she’d made up her mind that they’d break with tradition and make something at home rather than go out to the local pancake house for breakfast. She handed Sylvia back the measuring cup. “I think you were at two and a half cups, V.”“Yup! Just one more to go!” Sylvia dug a final half cup of flour out of the bag and dumped it into the bowl. As soon as her sister set the cup down, Lonnie stood up on the chair and bounced. “I wanna stir now, can I stir?” “Nona, sweets, there’s only flour in there.” Lonnie hopped from one foot to the other, undeterred by the ingredients in the bowl. “But, Momma, I just wanna stir it!” Edith looked Lonnie over, from her sleep-mussed hair to the feet of her feetie pajamas and sighed. It was Father’s Day, who was she to deny the kid some needless stirring? She bowed her head and handed over the wooden spoon, giving Lonnie a kiss on the head. “Alright, Nona, just be gentle.”The words had just left her mouth when a cloud of flour exploded from the bowl, aided by Lonnie’s vigorous stirring. There it was, the moment of regret Edith knew would happen as at some point during the cooking process. Still, the look of determination on Lonnie’s face as she stirred, even as flour filled the air, made up for the mess. She started to laugh and put a hand on Lonnie’s shoulder.“Hey, careful, careful! The flour’s getting everywhere, Nona.”Lonnie paused and turned her flour dusted face up at Edith as Sylvia leaned over and dumped baking powder into the mix. Edith glanced down at the floor and noticed her feet slide in the flour Lonnie’d displaced from the bowl. This could get bad very quickly if she didn’t take matters into her own hands.“V, hop up onto the chair with Alona, ok? I’m going to clean up the flour.”Lonnie dropped the spoon into the bowl and turned around to face Edith, concerned as her sister climbed up next to her.“I didn’t mean to, Momma, I just wanted to help!”“One, two!”Sylvia counted more measurements for the pancakes out loud. She must have decided to focus her attention on breakfast rather than Lonnie’s mess. She appreciated that. They were certainly here to have fun, but Edith would rather not run out of time with this breakfast. She’d also rather neither of her kids slip on any flour and crack their heads open. Edith yanked a teacloth from around the refrigerator door and ran it under the faucet for a few seconds.“I know, sweets, it’s ok. Just be careful next time.”She knelt down on the floor and wiped the flour up.“Sylvie got to help a whole lot!”“Mom, I’m putting the butter in!”Oh no, they were talking over each other now. That wasn’t a good sign. She straightened up and set the dishcloth on a nearby counter.“Sweets, hold on a minute.”Too late. She watched Sylvia pour the milk into the batter, too. A quick glance at Lonnie revealed that the kid wasn’t holding up well to the excitement of the morning and the stress of pancakes. She looked like she might begin to cry in a minute if Edith didn’t think of something to defuse this situation. Wait. She looked at the remaining ingredients near the bowl. The eggs. She reached over and picked them both up before Sylvia got to them. “Okay! We’ve almost got the batter made, kids!” That got their attention. The two of them stare up at her, Sylvia, from behind her long bangs, and Lonnie, from rapidly moistening eyes. “I’m going to give you each and egg to break into the bowl, then Nona will do some mixing, okay?”The expression of absolute despair evaporated from Lonnie’s face at the prospect of having an egg all her own to crack open. Sylvia shrugged and nodded.“Yeah, ok.”She handed her one of the eggs and watched as whacked it against the edge of the bowl. The egg split with a clean enough break and slid into the bowl.“Nice job, V, you’re getting good with eggs! Now, Nona, go ahead and break yours in the bowl.”She placed the other egg into Lonnie’s hands. The kid leaned over and tapped it against the bowl’s rim, not hard enough to crack it. She repeated this step a few times until the shell started to give under the tiny taps. Edith made a mental note to go over egg breaking with Lonnie as the egg finally cracked and flecks of shell fell into the mix. “Good work, Nona, you sure cracked that egg. Now, why don’t we mix this together?”She wasn’t sure it was wise to let Lonnie handle the mixing entirely on her own. That seemed like too much of a risk. She would, however, let Lonnie stir things up while she kept a hand on the spoon and made sure things stayed in control. “Yeah!” Nice. A huge cleanup project was one less thing she had to worry about.