Owen and the Mixer

I inherited a KitchenAid mixer from my grandmother, Ruth, and use it weekly.  I think she got it in the eighties (or perhaps earlier?), so it’s been a workhorse in the kitchen that has lasted quite well.  In the last year or so, coinciding with Owen’s ability and penchant for helping me in the kitchen with his whisking skills (considerable), the mixer has become a target for Owen’s sibling-less sibling rivalry.  It’s both cutely imaginative, and let’s face it, odd.

For example, If I tell Owen that I am going to start making something in the kitchen, Owen’s first question will be whether or not it is a job for him and his whisk, or a job for the mixer?  And then depending on what my answer is, what follows is either much elation or much angst.  It’s not so much that he likes to help me with his whisking – which he does – but he likes his game of one-upmanship with the mixer.  He’ll then ask me, “What does the Mixer say when it is my turn to do the mixing?”  And then of course he doesn’t rest until I respond, as the mixer, with some sort of expression of unhappiness.

Last weekend while Owen was happily whisking my cherry poppyseed cake batter, I prepared him with the possibility that it would be the mixer doing the mixing for the cupcakes, and the icing, as well as kneading the bread.  He was grumpy about this for a while, but then decided to help me and the mixer by pulling a chair up and offering words of encouragement, including many heartfelt exclamations of, “IT’S THE MIXER’S TIME TO SHINE!”  Which cracked me up.

And Owen loves when it is kneading time and we can use the mixer’s hook.  If I’m not careful, Owen will disappear with the hook and I’ll have to go retrieve it from the living room where it has become a pirate’s digits.