Parent Hustle 101: Baked Goods

Pro parenting tip. If you're stuck at home with all the kids because of a snow day or you forgot they have a superintendent's conference day off or some such, save your sanity by baking. Look, it won't matter if you can't boil water without burning it. Siri, Alexa, Google, or whatever they name the next version of Skynet, can walk you through the process. If that doesn't work an elder relative or neighbor can bail you out.

You will be a superhero to the children until the baked goods run out. Use the time they're distracted divvying up the spoils of your labor among themselves to plan the next distraction. Try the kitchen clean up game or the laundry folding game. Don't laugh, it might work.

Now the other part to this is always be prepared for emergency baking. If you're going to work with recipes from scratch this means you're stocked up on flour, sugar (brown, white, and confectioners), salt, baking soda, baking powder, butter, oil, and yeast. Or you can keep packages of cookie dough hidden in the fridge and freezer. Well hidden mind you, children are like blood hounds with that stuff. Also don't eat the treasure yourself. Your sanity will thank you later.

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