“We’re like bookends,” I thought. “Michael’s musings over how sweetly tender a small moment like blow-drying a baby’s hair can be; my musings over my bowl of peanut butter cookie dough at 7:30 a.m.”

The bowl of peanut butter cookie dough was the “last batch of school cookies” I would be making my youngest. I was baking them yesterday, as she got dressed for her last official day of instruction at the Academy of Hair Design. And, I was working very hard on trying to force-feed my memory embedding system with some sort of signal that would capture this moment and freeze it, or perhaps bronze it, for posterity.

I reached down to grab my heavy duty, several-ply stainless steel half baking sheet that I love so much. I hesitated, and instead opted for a small, flimsy baking sheet I knew had come with a toaster oven from a marriage gift twenty-five years ago. I wanted to make sure that the equipment I was using honored the entire nineteen and one-half years of my daughter’s existence. Continue reading Rylee’s Last Batch of School Cookies: The Art of Embedding an Essential Memory →