I am a sucker for that little girl.

Although I am only about half done making Nate's stocking and haven't yet wrapped a single present, it only took one comment ("We really should make cookies, Mommy!") from Lula today to send me into a cookie-making frenzy. Well, a semi-frenzy. It turns out the kind of cookie dough that you can cut into shapes has to be refrigerated for a few hours first. So I sent Scott to the store for some missing ingredients and made the dough tonight so we can make cookies tomorrow.

I see the cookie baking time going one of two ways:

- Tallulah insists on tasting the dough, grabbing at it and accidentally dropping most of it on our dusty-Cheerio-and-dried-pine-needle-laden floor. She cries inconsolably, hitting me and screaming if I try to salvage the remaining dough. I throw a couple of cookies on a baking sheet but our crappy stove burns them anyway. Nate, left to his own devices while we bake, chews on a lead-coated electrical wire, the bottom of my shoe, and every bit of loose cat litter he can find. A few hours later the vomiting starts -- for Tallulah, it's salmonella from the raw dough; for Nate, toxoplasmosis* from the cat litter. We spend the evening at the ER.

- While Nate takes an extra-long nap, Tallulah watches respectfully as I roll out the dough and cut it into shapes. Lula and I merrily decorate the cookies with sprinkles and M&Ms, during which neither of us spills or overeats the decorations. Tallulah waits patiently as the cookies bake and then cool. The cookies end up both beautiful and delicious. Nate wakes up just as Scott -- surprise! -- arrives home early from work. We all eat cookies together, singing Christmas carols and drinking eggnog as Nate keeps repeating his very first word: "Family."

I can only hope the reality is somewhere in the middle.

* OK, so it turns out vomiting isn't a symptom of toxoplasmosis. But adding "and Nate had achy flu-like symptoms that led to damage to his brain and eyes" doesn't scan as well. Though it is a little horrifying. (*runs to clean litter box*)