Baby Biscuits

Growing up, we had biscuits on a pretty regular basis.  Not those canned biscuits either.  Real biscuits.  Flour-on-your-hands, knead-the-dough biscuits.

Sometimes my mama would use cookie cutters to make fun shapes, but most often it was her biscuit cutter.  I loved to watch her knead the dough, pat it out, and cut all those circles.  We would talk and laugh and enjoy this little slice of life.

My favorite part was my baby biscuit.  Yes, MY baby biscuit.  I'm the baby in my family. My mama was never one to waste something, especially biscuit dough.  So, when she had cut out every biscuit she possibly could, she would take the leftover bits of dough and combine them to make a baby biscuit.  Just for me.

This baby biscuit looked nothing like the others lined up neatly on the pan.  It was misshapen, odd, squished together.  But it was my favorite.

Ten minutes later the timer would ding and the blissful aroma of fresh baked bread beckoned me.  Before my mama could get them off the pan and buttered, my fingers were excitedly laying claim to the one made just for me.

The outside lightly browned; the inside fluffy and light.  Steam rising as I cracked it open, butter dripping down my hand as I popped the entire thing into my mouth, savoring this wonderful creation.  Sure, I would eat one or two or five more of the others; but this one was, and still is, far and away my favorite.

I have my own children to make biscuits for now.  My daughter, when she was still the baby of the family, would stand in a kitchen chair while I made biscuits.  We would talk and laugh and enjoy this little slice of life.  And she would get the baby biscuit.  Her sweet eyes would light up every time I told her the story of her grandmother and me doing the very same thing thirty years before. 

Earlier this week I made biscuits as part of our supper.  The baby biscuit was sitting on the pan, hot and ready, just waiting for my daughter to come along and claim it.  We had a full house that night.  The kitchen was loud and busy.
  
I turned to get the baby biscuit for my daughter's plate.  Something was missing.  Part of the biscuit was gone.  Who would do such a thing?  Doesn't everyone know she's the baby and that biscuit is hers?

Apparently not my husband.  It seems he likes baby biscuits, too.  And so does the now-baby in our family, our seven-year-old son.  Turns out EVERYONE likes, and wants, the baby biscuit. 

This got me thinking about how many times in life we tend to pursue the seemingly perfect things (relationship, job, home, church, etc.); desperately wanting to be like everyone else and fit into what we think is the best place, or what society has convinced us is the ONLY place, to be.  All the while forgetting that if we will just give our bits (the hurt, the questions, the insecurities) to God, He will make something so unique and beautiful in us, that everyone will want what we have.