The agony of learing to make shortbread cookies

My Mom was here this weekend and it was mostly good. She came up to run a 1/2 marathon. A number of her running friends also were up, but they stayed at a hotel. I am really proud of my Mom's stick-with-itness when it comes to her running. She started late in life, at 65, and loves it and the circle of friends she has made through it.

During the race, we walked to one spot and then rode our bikes to another spot to cheer for her. Then I went to pick her up - I missed the finish but she was fine. All in all the running portion and being Mom's support crew was fun for me and the boys.

Phil did what was required to my bike to connect the bike carrier and we bought helmets for the boys. Side note - Adam got his first skinned knees on the way to the bike store, poor little guy. It was fun to take them out for a bike ride. Hopefully I will be able to start riding to/from childcare most mornings. The traffic is light at the time of day and it should be fun.

So all was good until Mom tried to show me how to make her shortbread cookies. My Mom makes the best cookies - honestly, it is not just me who says so. My boys love them so I thought I should learn how to make them. Well the rolling of the dough was really the beginning of the end of our nice weekend. She showed me how to work with the dough. I was trying my best to do what she had showed me, but could not. Of course my Mom took my lack of skill on as her personal failure - kept going on about how she was not a good enough teacher because this was so easy that anyone could do it. She discounts her skill at baking and believes it must be easy if she can do it. What she does not understand is that as the person she is trying to teach, if I can't do it, there are only 2 possibilities why I can't do it:
- I'm just not trying my best (which I was)
- I'm very stupid
I tried to explain that to her, but she laughed at me, which made me mad. Then when we tried to cook the cookies, the first batch did not work. She kept saying I would be able to tell when they were done by the colour of the cookie. I could not. By now she was also frustrated and spoke sharply to me about how could I not see the colour difference - almost implying that I was lying to her about my ability to see it. At this point, Phil finally got up and got involved. He knows I can't see the difference is colour shades very well. (He learned that when we painted our first (and only) room together). It helped diffuse the situation because he could talk to Mom about the colour of the cookies, the heating of the oven, the texture of the dough etc.

It bothers me that she can't accept that she is a good cook and baker and that not every one has those skill sets. I am really good at math, engineering and technical stuff. I cook out of necessity, not love. I don't have the skills to hone in cooking, everything is a battle for me - I still measure the amount of milk I add to scrambled eggs.

The worst part for me now is that I have the boys, I don't want her running herself down to them all the time. She deserves their respect as well as their love. But if she continues to tell them she is no good at stuff, they will not respect her. As well, it leaves them with the unspoken message that unless you are perfect, your best is not good enough. I can't seem to find the words that will make her understand this. She already does it with them and the language is starting to be used by my oldest.

Argh