This past week we focused on the letter “D” by reading If You Give a Dog a Donut… over… and over… and over again! My kids LOVED this book and asked to read it multiple times a day.
Tangent: If you are looking for a great time to read to your kids, breakfast and lunch is an amazing time! Keep a pile of books on your table and work your way through them while your kids eat (Of course make sure you are taking bites between pages… mama needs to be nourished too!!). This is always the time that we read our books for school and do devotions together.
So of course, because we were reading If You Give a Dog a Donut, we just HAD to make homemade donuts!
After looking up a recipe and settling on a glazed donut recipe from The Pioneer Woman that Bless This Mess shared (You can’t go wrong with The Pioneer Woman… can I get an “Amen?”), we started the process of making donuts! What I did not realize was the valuable life lessons that we would learn along the way.
Hurry up and wait.
Waiting is not an easy thing to do… especially for little kids. We live in the day of instant gratification. Want to watch a new movie? You don’t even need to go to a movie store any more; it’s available for download online! Hungry? Go to the fridge/cupboard and grab a snack; there’s no need to prep food… the prep has been done for you. Thirsty? Clean water is available at the flick of the wrist and the water faucet is on. We are in the day of the internet, TV dinners, fast food, and convenience stores.
My children thoroughly enjoyed making the dough for the donuts. Flour was everywhere, ON everyone/everything, but there were smiles on each face… until I told them the dough had to chill overnight. What? We can’t fry these now? According to the recipe, for best results the dough needs to chill for 8+ hours. Hmmmmm…
The next day, we rolled the dough out, cut out the donuts and then… time to wait again… the dough needs to rise for at least an hour. Sigh. All we wanted was a donut!
Finally, the oil was brought to temperature, the donuts were dropped in and moments later, we were rewarded with hot, delicious, melt in your mouth glazed donuts. My mouth is watering as my mind remembers the sweet smell of fresh donuts cooling on a wire rack.
Who knew making donuts would be such a valuable life lesson for my kids? Good things come to those who wait. Nothing is worth doing unless it is done right. Things take time and effort. Not everything is instant… sometimes we have to wait.
Over the next few days, I found myself thinking about the whole donut making process… amazed at how something so simple as making donuts could teach us so much! As I sat putting my toddler down for a nap, the thought crossed my mind:
If you give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
That’s what my job as a parent is… to teach my kids to “fish” or in this case to “donut.” It’s my responsibility to equip them with life skills that will make them successful in life. I’m not just filling their mind with knowledge. I’m filling their mind with wisdom, and in this instance… I am teaching them to wait.
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
Psalm 27:14
