It has been about two months since the kid turned three. But I swear time is moving at a logarithmic pace. He was a baby for the last three years, and in two months he has become a kid.

Here he is fresh from the barber shop. I am just thankful that they didn’t ask him if he would like a shave to go with his haircut.

Although, I must admit, as a dad, I think I am exiting the stage, where my role was a little fuzzy, to one that is much more obvious. We can really do a lot of things together more so now than even just a couple of months ago.

We have started projects, some that I will get into in later posts, and we are playing games with defined rules. Rules like the first person to hit Mommy with a ball wins. (This is a rather hilarious game, where Mrs. Play Gourmet is in another room, exercising, and we run through the house at top speed jockeying for position to be the first person to enter her room and take a shot at her. Of course, after each round, we collect our balls, and run back to the starting point to begin the next round.)

So now that he has a new level of comprehension to go with his independent spirit. I decided it was time for him to be more than a spectator when it comes to making his family specialty, dry Italian sausage. He, of course, was ready to go as soon as I mentioned it.

So, we begin our process, where he learns to run water through the casings. This was too easy, and he begged to be challenged more. Although it was a textural treat for him.

Once the casings are cleaned and soaking, we start to prepare the meat. This meant measuring our seasonings and pouring them over the meat. Of course our Play Gourmet’s dog was ready to pitch in at this point, just waiting for his number to be called.

Next came the mixing. There was no hesitation here. We were both elbow deep within seconds. And after about 5 mins, we had thoroughly mixed and were ready to stuff meat.

Now it was time to become mechanics, first assembling our stuffing machine, followed by learning about the mechanisms involved in stuffing. At first, I started stuffing, while the boy would guide the end product.

But, knowing how to do only one half of the process was not acceptable. So he insisted on doing the stuffing as well.

Our little Play Gourmet weighs about 30 lbs. And I would guess it takes about 30 lbs of pressure to push the meat, so, he definitely, had his work cut out for him. Never-the-less, he definitely stuffed the majority of the sausage, and left the guiding to me.

The stuffer, doesn’t only have to push, but of course reload as well. This is always a welcome few seconds of rest for those weary little muscles.

Back to how far we have come in the last few months; he barely had the attention span to watch a movie a few weeks ago, but now he will spend a solid two hours making sausage with me. No breaks, and no wandering physically or mentally. I miss my baby, but I think we are about to have more fun than we ever imagined.

Here is the proud boy with his trophy. The first ever Little Play Gourmet batch of dried Italian sausage.