Stella watches YouTube, thanks to the YouTube app on our iPad.  The other day she came across this Marshmallow Murder video – a somewhat annoying video that humanizes marshmallows and their last few minutes of life before becoming s’mores.

Fortunately, Stella did not focus on the fear and fiery death of the marshmallows.  Instead, she saw the end result = s’mores – and decided she wanted to try those.

So, like any good mother, I took Stella to the store and bought all the supplies – marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers.  Then we procured the flame.  We have an electric stove and I wasn’t about to start a fire in the fireplace, so I found an odorless tea candle.  A little ghetto, but at least the flame would be somewhat controlled -right?

Stella stabbed her first marshmallow and went to work, warming it over the candle.  And like any good marshmallow, it caught on fire. Amidst giggling, we blew it out and quickly shoved the molten marshmallow between a big hunk of chocolate (apparently you are supposed to use only one square, I didn’t know) and some graham crackers.

Stella took one bite of her s’more, noted the flavor and then decided it was more fun to roast (burn) the marshmallows.   It didn’t take long for our house to fill with the smell of burning marshmallow.  We got bored with just marshmallows and moved to peeps (which light up nicely, thanks to the coating of sugar). When we got bored with roasting the marshmallows, we moved to microwaving them.  They get all big and puffy and quite fun to poke with a skewer.

It was a fun and harmless (maybe a little messy) way to spend the afternoon. Plus, they way I look at it – it is better all the

sugar was burnt in the “name of science” versus us consuming it.

And when Daddy got home later that evening, we pulled it all out and fired up the candle for another round of s’mores fun!