Learning Curve

Lately Jeff has been all interested in helping with the cooking because of scout stuff so when we came home from church I gave him a cake mix and told him to follow the directions on the back of the box.  We needed to make cupcakes for my sister's birthday party this afternoon.  I went off to change Peter's clothes and put things away.  When I got back a couple of minutes later I looked in the bowl and it did not look like a cake mix:
Me: How much water did it say to put in?
Jeff: 1/2 cup.
Me: How much did you put in?
Jeff: 1/2 cup. 
(I thought to myself, this is a test.  Right now I am being tested.)
Me: Can you show me?
Jeff: See, right here on the measuring cup, it says 1/2.
Me: Yes, it does say 1/2.  Can you see at the top there it says quarts?  You added 1/2 of a quart to the mix instead of 1/2 of a cup.
Jeff: Huh?
Me: See right here at the top of this glass measuring bowl, there are the different measurements; quarts, milliliters, cups and ounces.  You have to look at the part with the cups if you want to measure 1/2 of a cup.
Jeff: Well it said 1/2.  I was almost right.
Me:  You added about four times more water than it needed and we used the last three eggs we had.  What do you think we can do?
Jeff: Can we use the strainer?
Me: That sounds like a good idea, but I don't think it will work like we want it to.
Jeff: Add another mix?
Me: Well, we would probably have to add three more cake mixes and another nine eggs to catch up to the water and I don't think we need 72 cupcakes for the party, not to mention the fact that we have zero eggs left.
Jeff: Can we call Grampa and get more eggs?
Me: You can try it.
He tried to call Grampa who was at church, then Aunt Jessica who was visiting teaching and didn't answer, then Uncle Mitch who didn't answer either.  Jess texted and asked what was up.  I asked if we could borrow some eggs, she said to go on over and get some from Mitch.  So we did.  On the way there I called my Mom to see if she had any ideas on what to do with the batter.  She suggested adding some things to it and making pancakes.  So we got the eggs, had a conversation about how essential it is to pay attention when you are following a recipe, mixed up another cake mix, got cupcakes baking and then we fixed the other batter into pancakes and I got to cook flat pancakes for 45 minutes. 
Jeffey loved the new pancake recipe, he says it is a million times better than our normal pancakes and I didn't even strangle him at all!  I am going to make him wash the dishes.