Now I’m no Betty Crocker or baking maven, but if you’re baking with someone, you’re probably great friends. Or becoming best buds. After all, you’re creating something together. Gosh, sounds like making a baby! Actually, that is what we did.

And the gingerbread men are adorable.

K and her friend, M, first met as teeny babes. Their first play date was in a crib. They weren’t terribly aware of one another.

Now, with both girls at three, a shared birthday party, and numerous dates including strawberry picking, we families are quite happy. Actually, we’ve all multiplied. Both of the big girls have young siblings, a month apart.

Here we are now.

Big and little heads.

But really, baking is quite a magical thing, right? There is alchemy, chemical change occurring in the oven. What you mixed up is not what comes out. What you put into a friendship, you could say, is key in what you hope to get out of it, but there is this whole separate thing called synergy. Teamwork almost becomes its own element, mixing with the compounds, to become something greater than each person’s individual efforts or effects. But what did we really do, beyond giving the girls time to spend together.

To make something, but also to just be.

It was while they washed hands, away from us, and on their own, that I overheard a sweet little conversation.

Sweet M, K’s friend, suggested vibrantly, that they take turns.

She then looked right at my girl and

said, “Kariin,  you’re my best friend.”

Even so with my friend, Anna. We got together with our kids and boom. We become so much more. We’re like Team Mommy. We see all, we can do more. We have more fun. There’s honesty, frankness, but we also buoy each other up. It’s support and laughter.

And the gingerbread smelled way amazing. I think it was while we were reading The Gingerbread Man, that the smells wafted out of the oven. The two girls benefited from their shared knowledge of the story, and certainly my girl learned much from her friend’s advanced reading skills.

Not to be all boring, though. The fox eats his conquest, the itty gingerbread man, who now has swollen, buckling, soggy legs that are just melting away in the stream. We, too, had our fill of ginger cookies.

But first, the decorating!

Long live great smells piling out of ovens, icing, raisin eyes, and the friends who make & eat them with us.

Stay tuned for part deux, Friends Who Schlep.

xoxo