I'm turning into my mother, I swear

Last night I was making these mint cream cupcakes for my Bible study group on Thursday. Everything was going fairly well, despite not having enough sugar to make the frosting yet and trying to cook in the kitchen while one of the lightbulbs was burnt out. The cupcakes themselves turned out well, a delightful change from last time's red velvet mini-fiasco, wherein I was splattering red batter all over the microwave and dish drying rack, I managed to keep the kitchen clean on this one. All this until I was making the mint cream filling, which called for me to beat a cup of heavy cream until stiff peaks formed, then beat in the mint syrup until it was blended. So, I got to the stiff peak part, added the syrup, turned on the mixer again, and soon thereafter, I saw that the cream was starting to get watery. Uh-oh. Not being a kitchen genius, I called my mom, who in fact is a kitchen genius, and asked her if there was a fix for this. "I think I over beat it, is that possible?" "Yeah," she replied, "you're turning it into butter. Whipping cream beat too long turns into butter." Apparently, there is no quick fix, and I'm just going to have to try again with filling. She did give me one hint though, which I'm sure she was tickled to do. "You know, if you add a heaping teaspoon of confectioner's sugar to the whipping cream when you start, it'll keep it from getting over-beaten. My mom taught me that trick." She loves pointing out to me the things I do that remind her of herself. I don't know why, I think it gives her some sort of sick satisfaction that not only her genes, but also her little habits and quirks have been passed down as well. I guess this is something I won't fully understand until I myself have kids, I'm sure I'll find myself thinking man, Mom used to do this too.

Last night, as Christina and I were going to bed, we talked about kids (the kids we will have in the future, presumably), and what kind of boundaries are good for them in terms of experimenting with alcohol or sex or whatnot. Christina said that it was naive to think that there wouldn't be some curiousity about that kind of thing, yet as I was thinking about my parents, I started to realize that I could never remember a time that they sat me and my brother down and had a conversation about what kind of behavior was not allowed and/or expected of us. Yet I didn't have my first drink until I was twenty and didn't start experimenting sexually until around the same time, maybe later. But I never did any of that in highschool. And now that makes me wonder how my parents managed to instill in us a boundary that we somehow knew not to cross without ever beating their chests or pining us down. It seems amazing, in hindsight, and however they did it, I think I'm going to want to take notes.