Baking Cookies for Hallowe'en

Hi. I'm Charles the Bear Cub. You know me. I live on Sparkle Road with my buddy, James. He's really old. He was the second Canadian to get off Noah's Ark, you know.

 Oh. Wait! Chance lives with us, too. He's a newborn cubby someone left in a basket on our doorstep. He's a wee little thing. He's so little he doesn't even have any teeth. Chance drinks chocolate owls' milk. He makes little squeaky noises when he's happy and little squawky noises when he's afraid or hungry or has poo in his diaper. I look after Chance, too. He's a handful!

Know what we're doing? We're baking cookies. We're baking pumpkin cookies for Hallowe'en. When boys and girls come to our house and shout, "Trick or treat!" Chance and me will guess who they are and give them the cookies we baked. I'm sure they will like them 'cuz they're taste-O-liscious! We know 'cuz we ate them had to  make some more.

This is how you make pumpkin cookies. We measure all the ingredients in a bowl. Here are the ingredients. See?

• 300 ml all-purpose flour
• 5 ml baking powder
• 5 ml baking soda
• 5 ml ground cinnamon
• 2 ml ground nutmeg
• 3 ml salt
• 100 ml melted butter 
• 300 ml  sugar
• 250 ml cooked pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 5 ml vanilla extract
•  
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 Then we stir them up. James says I'm the Minister of Stirring. I l-o-v-e to stir. Chance is the Deputy Mini-Stir. That's a pun, you know. Then we put the dough on a cookie sheet. Then we put them in the oven.

We are very careful not to get too close 'cuz the oven is very hot. I have to hang on to Chance. He wants to go in the oven with the cookies! He can't do that! He'd get all crispy! Bear cubs shouldn't get burnt. Bear cubs have to be safe. If we got burnt, we'd have to go to Hotel-Dieu and see the doctor.


Now the cookies are in the oven. We set the timer and we watch them bake. The cookies have to bake for 12 minutes. That's a long time.  I only have to sit on the Time Out Chair for five minutes and think about what I did. Five minutes is a long time. Twelve minutes is really long! I wonder what the cookies are thinking about while they bake. I know what they should think. They should think about me. I'm as hungry as a bear and I'm gonna eat those cookies all up! While we wait, we sing The Prune Song and laugh.

Oh. Wait! Did you hear that? The timer is ringing! I know what that means. It means the cookies are done. We have to turn off the oven and the cookies have to come out of the oven. James takes them out but we can't eat them, yet. They're too hot. When they cool off, we get to eat one. Cookies are yummy and yummy is one of the four food groups in Canada's Food Guide. We want to eat more but James says we can have another one after we eat supper. We're gonna have pumpkin soup for supper and pumpkin cookies for dessert!

Oh wait! Did you hear that? James is hollering, "Where are my handsome bear cubs? Where are my Sons of Windsor? Where are my Princes of Ontario? That's me! Charles! That's Chance! We're handsome bear cubs. We're Sons of Windsor and Princes of Ontario! We gotta go find James so we can get our ears tickled and our noses kissed.

 This is me, Charles the Bear Cub saying, "Be good citizens. Good citizens get to help bake pumpkin cookies for Hallowe'en. Oh! Wait! Come over to our house and play with us! We can bake pumpkin cookies together! Okay! Over and out!"

Today is Chance's Birthday

Hi. I'm Charles the Bear Cub. You know me. I live on Sparkle Road with my buddy, James. He's really old. He was the second Canadian to get off Noah's Ark, you know.

 Oh. Wait! Chance lives with us, too. He's a newborn cubby someone left in a basket on our doorstep. He's a wee little thing. I look after Chance, too. He's a handful! 

Know what? Today is Chance's birthday. He's one year old, now. We don't know 'zactly what day he was born but it has been a year since we found him wrapped in the little green blankie right in front of our door. I am pretty sure that angels brought Chance to our house. Angels look after us. James says we all have guardian angels. They are with us but we can't see them 'cuz they're invisible. Chance thinks he's invisible when he closes his eyes. He's not. I can still see him. He just has his eyes closed.

I know what to do on happy birthdays. We have  happy birthday parties. This is how we do it. First, we get happy birthday hats to wear. Then we make a happy birthday cake and put happy birthday candles on it. Chance doesn't want happy birthday cake. He doesn't have any teeth, yet.

We made happy birthday pumpkin cookies instead of a happy birthday cake. Chance licks them. We get to eat happy birthday ice cream, too. Ice cream is yummy and that's one of the four food groups in the Canada Food Guide, you know.

We sing the Happy Birthday song. It goes like this-

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Chance,
Happy birthday to you.

Then we sing it in French.

Bonne fete a toi,
Bonne fete a toi,
Bonne fete cher Chance,
Bonne fete a toi.

Then Chance has to blow out the happy birthday candles and make a happy birthday wish but he can't say the wish out loud or it won't happen. It has to stay a secret. I don't know what Chance is wishing for but I hope he's wishing for lots and lots  of Smarties and that he will share them with his big brother. That's me! .  I l-o-v-e Smarties, don't you?

We give Chance our presents. I saved up my allowance and I got Chance some Play-Doh at Dollarama. I hope he doesn't try to eat it.

Chance puts everything in his mouth. That's 'cuz he's a wee little cubby and doesn't know you can't taste everything. One time Chance swallowed some pennies and James said, "You are a very funny looking piggy bank, Mister Chance. Indeed you are."

Chance just made little squeaky noises 'cuz he was happy. James said maybe Chance was copper deficient. I don't know what that means but I put my piggy bank way up on the top shelf. I don't want Chance to eat my pennies! He'd eat them all up!

James says we have to watch Chance like a hawk. That's so silly. We're not hawks. We're bear cubs. Bear cubs don't fly. Hawks can fly. Wow! If I were a hawk, I'd fly everywhere. That would be fun! Flying is even faster than riding my blue bike with the Canada flag on it. Know what?  I would fly over to your house!


Oh. Wait! Did you hear that? James is hollering, "Where are my handsome bear cubs? Where are my Sons of Windsor? Where are my Princes of Ontario? That's me! Charles! That's Chance! We're handsome bear cubs. We're Sons of Windsor and Princes of Ontario! We gotta go find James so we can get our ears tickled and our noses kissed. 

This is me, Charles the Bear Cub saying, "Be good citizens. Do good deeds every day. Be nice to your little brother so you can have some of his happy birthday cake and his happy birthday cookies and sing the Happy Birthday Song at his happy birthday party. Then you can eat Smarties and drink root beer, too.

 Oh! Wait! Come over to our house and play with us! We can eat happy birthday cookies together! We can eat and eat and eat until we're really stuffed! Okay! Over and out!"