Chanukah Cookies a la Jonah (17 months) and NeNe (62 years and 17 months)

Chanukah Cookies a la Jonah (17 months) and NeNe (62 years and 17 months)

 ½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 beaten egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups flour

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking powder

(This recipe is supposed to make 40 2” cookies, but Jonah and NeNe could only get about 20 cookies out of it, and they still can’t figure out why)

 NeNe creams butter and sugar together, then adds the rest of the ingredients.  Jonah helps by taking all of Daddy’s DVDs out of their holders.  As NeNe’s Now Husband Dan has already informed her that DVDs will soon be obsolete, she isn’t concerned.

 The dough is chilled for four hours.  During this time, NeNe makes three attempts to put Jonah down for a nap. Third time’s the charm.

 NeNe rolls the dough out.  Jonah makes several international calls and develops a friendship with a community in Honduras.

 NeNe opens the stepstool.  This is Jonah’s signal to hang up the phone on Honduras and come over and climb it. NeNe places an apron on him, which when folded several times, covers his entire body. She gives him cookie forms of a Jewish star, a dreidel, a chai, and a menorah. 

Jonah puts a large wad of dough into his mouth.  NeNe explains that we have to make the cookies first.  Jonah is dubious and continues to chew the dough.  NeNe presses one cookie, and Jonah follows.  He makes a lot of stars, dreidels, chais, and menorahs and sneaks a lot of dough into his mouth when he thinks NeNe isn’t looking. NeNe sprinkles the cookies with blue sugar crystals.

 The cookies are placed in the oven at 400 degrees for ten minutes.  Jonah takes that opportunity to see if he can find pictures of doggies on Daddy’s laptop, but instead, obliterates Daddy’s Fantasy Football matrix.  

 After the cookies are baked, NeNe removes the cookie sheet from the oven and Jonah hops up and down and waves his arms and speaks in tongue.  NeNe explains that the cookies are hot and we must wait for them to cool. Jonah responds by dropping to the floor and burying his face in his hands.  NeNe totally understands, as she does exactly the same thing when denied cookies.

 After the cookies are cooled, NeNe and Jonah have their own private Chanukah party. The few remaining cookies are covered with a cloth.  At 6AM the following day (one hour earlier than his usual wake up time), Jonah makes a beeline for the kitchen, points to the dish of cookies and opens his mouth.   NeNe gives him one.  She tells him not to tell Mommy about this diversion from his usual healthy breakfast.  It is their secret.