Grasshopper New Media Presents...

Thursday, my son came to me and said, “Would you help me cook?”

Uh, yeah!

He has a project for 8th grade Spanish, in which he has to prepare an authentic Mexican dish and write a report about it’s creation, and the history of the food as well. For Nich’s project, he chose “Quesadilla,” a relatively common food, but requiring an artisan’s touch for true epicurean delight.

Now, my son had never made them before, nor had he a lengthy tenure in la cocina (the kitchen). However, he had a willing and free spirit. My job as parent was to watch and advise, not to provide answers or do any cooking. So when he added shredded beef jerky to the cheese, I bit my tongue.

That was the best decision I made that day, as it turned out that adding some beef jerky to a quesadilla is pretty awesome.

Which leads me to tonight’s sermon: Let your kids experiment. Cheer them on. Show them you believe in them. Allow yourself to get sucked up into their vivid imaginations.

It’s hard sometimes, ’cause, hey, you’re a grownup now, you pay a mortgage and and pay taxes and know your pharmacists by name and everything. But when it comes to your kids, you have to let that go sometimes, more often then you do, more often than I do, more often than anyone does. You have to take off your grownup suit and wallow around in the mud with your kids, inside their minds, while they build castles and spaceships and dream of worlds yet discovered.

Trust me on the beef jerky.

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[tags]parenting, kids, experimenting, food. quesadillas, beef jerky, experimentation, risk, support, encouragement[/tags]
Photo of handsome young man courtesy of the author, under a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved