Sometimes even when we follow instructions we can still make mistakes, as my oldest son found out this week.

He received a “Snickerdoodles in a box” gift. He was adamant about making these cookies by himself.

I had lots of baking of my own I needed to do in preparation for the Christmas holiday, so I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, just be sure to follow the instructions.”

Working in the same space, I wasn’t paying much attention to what he was doing but I answered his questions as they came.

“Mom, it says mix. How do I do that?”

“Use my hand mixer.” I opened up a draw and handed him the beaters that went with it.

A few minutes later his mixing stopped and he asked where he could find another bowl.

I took one down from a high shelf and didn’t think another thing about it, until a plum of brown dust filled my kitchen. I pulled the hand mixer out of the new bowl I’d given him and turned off the spinning beaters. “What are doing?”

“Mixing the cinnamon and sugar; the instructions said I needed to do this in a separate bowl.”

“Oh, honey,” I said waving my hands through the falling dust. “Using a mixer on only dry ingredients makes a mess, especially an ingredient as light as cinnamon. You should have just used a fork or a spoon.”

“But the instructions said mix.”

I laughed. “I guess that what I get for telling you to follow the instructions. But next time, I hope you’ll remember that the word mix doesn’t always equal high powered equipment.”

A lesson I doubt he’ll ever forget as he wiped down every cupboard and counter-top in the joint. Airborne cinnamon sure can fly far.