Mmmm Cookies!

Yesterday was one of those days. Mommy and Daddy were exhausted from a sleepless night, thanks to Devlin. He was up from 4am to almost 6am, complaining of an earache. No, not the ear that had the popcorn kernel, but the other year.  We tried ear drops, painkillers, warm compresses - to no avail. I think he finally fell asleep from exhaustion, as did we. Fortunately, the girls slept in until 8am. Their sleep had been interrupted too, otherwise their eyes would have been open at 7am.
The weather was rainy. The kids had been cooped up inside all day, and by late afternoon, they were driving the zoo keepers insane. As an attempt at distraction, I suggested we bake cookies. Devlin wanted Skor cookies but the pantry revealed no toffee bits, so we settled on chocolate chip cookies. Each child took a turn at stirring the cookie batter. Devlin cracked the eggs and I made sure no shells made their way into the mix. More stirring. Finally we were ready to put the cookies onto the cookie sheet.
I carefully placed cookie dough balls onto the cookie pan, and let each child have their turn at flattening the mounds into discs. My attention was mainly on dropping the cookie batter onto the sheets, so I didn't catch this at first. Then something caught my eye. Each child, after carefully smushing the cookie dough into a round shape, then licked his or her palm, before moving onto the next cookie dough lump! As I yelled "stop", Aisling then started to pick out the chocolate chips from each formed raw cookie and pop them into her mouth.
After the cookies came out of the oven, Daddy sampled them, and complimented the kids on their efforts. Then I revealed the secret ingredient - kiddie saliva.
Mmmm...cookies made from scratch...and lots of love!