Cooking With Cade And Nana

When Christy Hagedorn started sharing videos of her son, Cade, baking, she wanted to be able to connect with her family in a fun way.
A recent video of Cade baking with his grandmother, and eating the ingredients, went viral.
Hagedorn said she thinks the video resonated with viewers because "it probably just brings back good memories for people."
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Not all that long ago, a video of a toddler baking with his grandmother wouldn't be that special. But during the pandemic, when so many families can't spend time together, watching something as simple as a boy making cookies with his grandma has hit viewers in the heart.

As of Wednesday, the video of Cade, a two-year-old, baking chocolate chip cookies with his grandmother has racked up more than 38 million views.

Over about three minutes, Cade's grandmother tries to get through a basic cookie recipe with her grandson. But at every step, Cade makes the disruptive choices any toddler would. He shoves flour, raw eggs, sugar and batter into his mouth, anything he can get his hands on. The less grandma wants him to do it, the better.

Cade's grandmother can't help but belly laugh throughout, uttering lines like, "No eating the butter — Good job!," and "Flour — yucky!" and also "That's raw egg! No eating eggs. Crack and put it in."

Christy Hagedorn, Cade's mother, initially started posting the baking videos to stay connected with her parents and three sisters who live in different states. Hagedorn said she was shocked when the video gained so much traction, but she also understands why it resonated.

"It probably just brings back good memories for people," Hagedorn told Insider.

The video is resonating at a time when many families can't be together due to the pandemic

Hagedorn, an attorney with the Navy, also shared the clip at a time when so many families are starving for these types of heartfelt, family-oriented moments. Due to coronavirus risks, many grandparents have now gone months with only seeing their grandchildren through a window or six feet away from one another outdoors, if that.

Hagedorn and her son were in that same position. Before Cade's grandmother's recent 10-day visit last week, it had been months since the family members had been together in person.

The video also lifts the veil on the unique set of challenges working parents of young children have faced since the pandemic hit.

Toddlers can't really be left alone to play or occupy themselves. As the video repeatedly reminds viewers, a parent or caregiver can't even turn their back to flip the page in a cookbook without risking the entire bowl of batter getting dumped onto the floor.

Hagedorn's husband is an essential worker — he's a nurse in the military. So, since March, Hagedorn has been on her own during the day, entertaining and teaching Cade, while also completing her legal work. In addition to baking, Hagedorn hikes with her son and often sets up a water table for him, a structure that allows Cade to dip his hands into liquid, which offers sensory benefits.

Like other working parents with young children, Hagedorn has had to carve out few-minute intervals of "free" time during the day to get her work done.

"I take conference calls while we're hiking and when we use the water table. You try and multitask, which no one really can," she told Insider. "When my mom was there, just having someone else to help was such a relief."

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