When my kids were younger, I baked all the time, to the point I was always running out of artificial vanilla extract. It’s not because I’m a particularly fancy or even exceptionally talented chef. I’m agreeably average. It’s because cookies were how I kept going as a mom.

I’ve always stuck to the basics like chocolate chip or peanut butter or oatmeal raisin not just because that’s what my four boys preferred but because the ingredients were cheap. They were always on hand apart from that pesky forgotten vanilla extract. Eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, butter if my bank account allowed and margarine if it did not. When we were going through our many lean months, I stuck to oatmeal cookies because they were actually better made with margarine and also masqueraded as a healthy choice.

Cookies were not an everyday occurrence in our house, but they were an every week occurrence. On rainy days when my kids had to walk home from school because we didn’t have a car, I baked cookies. When I could feel it in my bones that they were missing out on something vital I should be providing for them, I baked them cookies. I filled our house with the smell of chocolate or peanut butter or oatmeal raisin and warmth, maybe most importantly warmth. Our house never felt warm enough in the cold, wet months of November and December. Every sniffle from my boys, every time I touched a hand to their cold cheeks or toes, the guilt of not being able to keep up with our heating bills overwhelmed me. And so I preheated the oven with the door slightly open. And so I softened the butter, I put the eggs in hot water to get them to room temperature. I put on my apron. I said, “who wants cookies?” And it got me every time, how excited they were to get cookies from me. How much they appreciated this small gesture, this sugary apology for all the ways I felt like I was failing them. They always forgave me and they always wanted my cookies.

I baked cookies to help them feel normal, to help us feel normal as a single parent household living always right around the poverty line. I baked cookies for their classroom because the sight of them proudly carrying a tin of cookies, their straight little shoulders high and proud under their backpacks, filled me with a sort of selfish peace. Here is how they feel good, here is how they feel seen and fine and normal. They got to be the kids who were generous. They got to be the kids with the cookies.

It was the same when their friends came over. I distracted these little guests, drew their gazes away from our tiny rented house and threadbare rugs and too-cold kitchen with plates of warm cookies. My oldest son, the serious one with the sweet face and the furrowed brow, he always looked so relieved by that plate. Always worried his friends might notice that there were five of us living in a place that was probably meant for two or three people. Or that we didn’t have a car or lots of money or new coats ever. He looked at me when I handed him the plate and he understood what those cookies really were. A sort of desperate love for him and his brothers and us as a family. A promise to keep trying to do better. An offer of comfort.

Our cookie ritual has shifted through the years. As very little boys they asked to crack eggs or make shapes with the dough or add sprinkles. They turned the light on in the stove and sat cross-legged in front of its warmth to watch their cookies puff up and take shape, calling out “that one’s mine” and counting them out to see how many days of cookies they had to look forward to.

As older boys they ate them by the handful before they even made it into the cookie jar. Not looking at me, headphones in, just eating. As men, they ask me to bring them cookies when I visit. They all have their favorites. They don’t want to share them anymore, not with anyone. They know what those cookies mean to me without having to talk about it. They forgive me. With or without the artificial vanilla.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once but she’s open to requests.