Tiny Traditions

It is Saturday morning after a Friday night sleepover with 3 yr old Wesley. We are in the kitchen for our traditional pancake breakfast. Wesley and I have our little routines. I mix the pancake batter and she gives it a final magic mix. While she stirs, I get the griddle out and spray it with oil. We both watch the gooey disc sizzle on the griddle until the bubbles pop and Wesley says, “Flip it Gamma!”
This Saturday we were moving right along in the process until I put the pancake on her tray with her bowl of syrup for dipping. Wesley said, “ This is the wrong bowl, Gamma.” I looked down and realized that her syrup bowl was a little white bowl. Oh my, she was so right. This was wrong.
A little background confession (or two) is necessary here. I have a tiny bowl problem. Not a tiny problem but a problem with tiny bowls. I like them. I think they are really, really cute. I see them at Goodwill and at oriental grocery stores and I just have to buy them. Consequently, I have a lot of them. More than any sane person needs. There are several towering stacks tucked away in the cabinet. It is an innocent addiction , a victimless crime, and they are amazingly useful. Just the right size for a dab of this or a smidge of that. The very thing for syrup dipping.
My second sad confession is that I really tried to pass on my love of tiny bowls to my daughter. I gave her a set of tiny bowls at her wedding shower! She was very gracious but oddly unmoved by the momentous occasion of her first, few tiny bowls. Alas, she does not seem to have the tiny bowl gene. I don’t think she even notices them at the Goodwill.
Back to Saturday morning and pancake time. When Wes said she had the wrong bowl I knew exactly what she meant. Somewhat unconciously, I always use one particular bowl for her syrup. It is a small white bowl with a little green flower near an inside rim. Perfectly charming! I don’t remember when it became the syrup bowl in my mind, but it did. Don’t you have a special fondness for patterns and colors from your childhood? Do you ever see a dish or plate at an antique store and say, “Oh those were my grandmother’s plates.” Or, “I always use to have ice cream in a bowl just like that.”
So when Wesley said, “I need the bowl with the little green flower,” my heart leaped with joy. At only three she already realizes the importance of the perfect tiny bowl. I delightfully transferred her syrup to the RIGHT little bowl. Let the pancake dipping begin! (In the tiny bowl with the little green flower.) Just the thing for a sweet little tradition.