Macaroni and Cheese

"If you're going to be good at something, make it something that elementary-aged school children like." You can quote me.

I'm good at macaroni and cheese. My kids say that I'm the best macaroni and cheese maker in the whole world. Granted, they haven't traveled far enough to know that for sure, but it's still something I take a certain amount of pride in. My kids like something I do.

What's my secret? It's simple. I use real butter, real milk, and follow the instructions on the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box to the letter. Granted, we lost our 1/4-cup measure some time ago, but I can estimate the right amount in either the 1/3-cup or 1/2 cup measure (whichever is clean) pretty accurately. When the four-tablespoon mark on the wrapper around the stick of butter is somewhere off center, I can get the right amount every time -- even if one end of the stick has been used to butter toast or corn. I've got it down.

My kids say I'm the best dad in the world, too. Again, they haven't seen every dad in the world. If they did, I'm sure they'd see many that are better, who find it easier than I do to figure out the instructions for that job. If it was printed on a blue box, maybe I could find it. I'm guessing, though, that those instructions are harder because the end product is far more complex. I want to raise kids that can handle tricky situations, like the pot of busyness boiling over and making a mess in their lives. Or improvising when their lives run out of milk or butter at the wrong time. I want to raise kids who can show their own kids just how to stir things without spilling, so that all the flavors of life combine to make something good.

Okay, no great surprise that I stretch a food allegory a little too far, I guess. But my point is that I'd be a better dad if I would stick to the instructions a little better. I need to do a better job of reading my Bible and getting to know the Jesus that it reveals, and to be more like Him. Then I'll find it easier to raise good cooks.

I mean kids.