good Times Cookies

名称：good Times Cookies
内容简介：
Dear Arizona,
　 This year I moved in with my dad and stepmom. I really miss my mom, but my stepmom is pretty nice to me. Mother’s Day is almost here, and I’d like to do something to thank my stepmom. Any ideas?
　 —Thankful Stepdaughter in Three Springs

Dear Thankful,
　 When my friend Ollie was seven, he moved in with his grandmother, who lives down the street from me. (We call her Abuela.) I don’t know how you feel about change, but change has never been easy for me. And I remember that the move to Abuela’s was really, really hard for Ollie. Especially in the beginning.

My strongest memories from those days are of making “Missing Cookies” in Abuela’s kitchen. It’s not what it sounds like. The cookies weren’t actually missing. We just talked about the stuff Ollie missed while we made the cookies. We made Missing-Mom Cookies, Missing-Old-House Cookies, Missing-the-Comfy-Blue-Sofa Cookies . . . you get the point! Anyway, life seemed to be getting a little happier for Ollie every month.

There was this one sunny spring day when Ollie and I were making a throne for my kitty cat, Cow.

“Lions are the kings of the jungle,” I told Ollie. “And Cow is the king of this house.”

“You mean king of this castle!” Ollie corrected me, adding a few more pillows to our royal pile.

“Ta-da! The highest throne in the land,” I proclaimed. “Now you’ll be the top cat of all, King Cow! We should have a special day called Top-Cat Day. You can sit on your throne and we’ll bring you sardines. . . .” I looked over at Ollie and realized he wasn’t smiling. “Hey, is something wrong?”

Ollie shrugged. “I guess I just started thinking about stuff,” he said.

“What stuff ?”

Ollie was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “I was thinking about how Mother’s Day is coming up.” He told me that even though he still missed his mother, he wanted to do something special for Abuela.

Since Cow really didn’t seem very interested in his throne, Ollie and I pulled down some of the cushions, sat on them, and talked about ways he could celebrate with Abuela. We finally came up with the perfect idea.

On Mother’s Day, after my family and I brought my mom breakfast in bed, I walked down the street to Ollie’s house to help with his special surprise. We took out all of the baking ingredients, then invited Abuela into the kitchen.

“Oh, wonderful!” She smiled.

“We haven’t made Missing Cookies in ages.”

“We’re not going to make Missing Cookies today,” Ollie explained. “Today we’re making Good- Times-with-Abuela Cookies.”

“Hmm, I like the sound of that,” said Abuela. “Tell me more.”

“Well,” said Ollie, “we were thinking about all the fun we’ve had with you. So we thought it would be cool to make Flying-Kites-on-the-Beach Cookies and Riding-the-Cable-Car Cookies and Getting-Tacos-at-Miguel’s Cookies.”

“I love that!” said Abuela. “Just think about how delicious those cookies will taste with memories of our favorite times mixed in!”

That day, we made two different batches: The-Day-We-Saw-the-Baby-Elephant-at-the-Zoo Cookies and The-Night-the-Lights-Went-Out-and-We-Lit-a-Bunch-of-Candles Cookies.

“Remember how you taught us to make shadow puppets in the candlelight?” Ollie asked Abuela as he rolled out dough for The-Night-the-Lights-Went-Out-Cookies.

“I sure do!” Abuela grinned. “Your shadow dog was so realistic I wanted to take it for a walk.”

Anyway, as I was saying, that Mother’s Day was a bunch of years ago. But we still make cookies in Abuela’s kitchen. Sometimes they’re the Missing kind; sometimes they’re the Good-Times kind. Abuela says that everything tastes better when it’s made with love, and I definitely believe that’s true.

So, dear Thankful, maybe you could read my letter with your stepmom and see if she’d be up for baking cookies with you on Mother’s Day. You could do one batch of Missing Cookies and one batch of Good-Times Cookies. And don’t worry about doing exactly the right thing. It’s the thought that counts, and I can tell you’re an extremely thoughtful person!

Ciao for now,

Arizona