Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies: The Word Mommy

When you are the parent of a newborn, you eagerly await the day when you child will open his or her mouth and say the coveted "mommy" or "uhma" or "ma ma."  It's one of the milestones you so look forward to, and nothing beats the sweetness of the sound of having your child address you as "mommy" for the first time.

All that changes however, as your child beings to learn that word and starts to use it ALL the time.  I mean when the first word that they say in the morning is "MOMMY" and the last word at night is "MOMMY."  And suddenly - it is all you hear.  EVER.  Since I'm a stay at home mom, I sometimes feel like that is the only word my kids know how to say.  I enter a room and I'm deluged with the word, like rapidfire bullets shooting towards me all at the same time.  "MOMMY! MOMMY!  MOMMY!!  MOMMY!!!"  Multiply it by three and you get the idea.  Bullets in all directions and completely unavoidable.  I will be shot at, hit, and struck down by the word multiple times. 

Sometimes it's the quality of expression in the word "Mommy" that can just make you crazy.  Sometimes it's that hyper "Mommy", the mad "MOMMY", the whiny "Mommy" (my personal least favorite), the tattletale "Mommy", the give me attention "Mommy" or the I have to go pee pee "mommy" that pushes you over the edge.  In a single day (yesterday) I tried to count how many times Son and Daughters said, "Mommy."  Let's just say that at 3:00 PM, I lost count at over 200.

Sometimes I just do not want to hear the word.  I mean, REALLY not hear it.  All the bullets of Mommy flying at my head - I just want to duck and take cover.  And twice a week, I do that for 30 minutes.  Twice a week, I drop Son and Daughters off at their 30 minute swim lesson, and I swim laps.  I clog my ears full of water, so even if they did call me I couldn't hear, and just keep my head tucked and underwater, hiding from it all.  Those 30 minutes of not hearing "Mommy" are some of the most peaceful in what sometimes is an endless day.

I'm truly grateful to the swim teachers who make that happen, so I decided that today I would bake some cookies (in between hearing the word mommy about 20 times from Son) for them.  I was originally going to do a basic chocolate chip, but then wanted to use up my random 5 lb bag of oatmeal and decided to go with an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.  This one is adapted from Tish Boyle's The Good Cookie: Over 250 Delicious Recipes from Simple to Sublime

The nice thing about these cookies is that they aren't cloyingly sweet but they do offer the rich satisfaction of being a chocolate chip cookie.  And we all know, nothing can beat THAT.  (Okay - maybe hearing, "I love you mommy" at the end of the day, right before the kids go to bed.)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle
makes 5 dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate morsels (1/2 cup to be pulverized with oatmeal, the remaining to be put in as chips)
1 cup (2 sticks of butter) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/ 4cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt ina medium bowl. In the bowl of a food processor (or mini prep) combine oats and 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips and process until finely ground, about 45 seconds. Stir oat mixture into flour mixture and set aside.

In a bowl of an electric mixer using a paddle attachment OR with a hand mixer, beat the butter, sugars, and vanilla extract at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of the bowl as necessary. At low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing just until combined. Using a wooden spoon, stir in remaining 2 cups chocolate morsels.

Scoop out tablespoonfuls of dough onto cookie sheets. Bake 11 to 13 minutes.

NOTE: For some people the dough may be stiffer so after baking a pan, notice if your cookies are too thick. If they are, flatten the dough a bit so that the cookies have a better chance of spreading.

Printable recipe

I'll escape the bullets for a moment by eating these.