My children think I'm much better at this mothering thing than I really am. I'm really not sure why they would think such a thing, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but there it is.
So they place demands on me that I am unable to meet, which leads to them whining and me feeling guilty. Horrible mother.
I'm not quite sure what to do with this information, but I'm sure it will be a helpful thing to keep in mind. Or not. I think we'd all be a whole lot happier if we were all a tad more realistic with our expectations.
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**EDIT** I just realized this all happened on April Fool's Day--well, that makes it all better
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**EDIT** I just realized this all happened on April Fool's Day--well, that makes it all better
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And, under the category of "why do I even bother," I submit to you, our supper experience this evening.
So Hubby was gone this evening and it was up to me to feed the kiddos. Nothing's really new here, except that generally the Hubby helps with meal prep on weekends. I decided (with the kids' help) to make something that we all like: chicken skewers. If you've been around for a while, you know how rare it is that we find something we all like to eat. Heck, we don't even all like pizza, for goodness sake!
I guess my first clue that this would not be an easy evening should have been when I splattered the marinade all over myself while talking to my MIL.
Anyway, I marinaded the chicken, and then we needed to head to the store...all 4 of us (again, if you've been around for a while you know how much I despise shopping with all of my children at the same time *shudder*)...because neither AKD, nor I, have remembered, during the umpteen other trips out to shopping establishments in the past couple of days (*shudder* again), that he needs a plain white shirt for school. Tomorrow.
So shopping took longer than I had anticipated (*shudder*), and we didn't return home until around 5:45. At this point, I should probably mention that we usually eat supper at 5:30, and generally no later than 6. MC was starving. I was feeling a little grumbly in the tummy as well.
I had AKD start the grill for me, while I started skewering chicken. By the time I was done, the grill was on fire. Yes, you read that right. The grill was on fire. He had left all three burners on high to preheat the grill, and in the 7 or so minutes that elapsed between when he lit the grill and I went out to put the meat on, the temp had risen to above 700*F, and the grill plates, the grill, everything was on fire.
Shall we talk about the fire triangle now? A fire needs 3 things to burn: heat, a fuel source, and oxygen. We had heat from the burners, we had oxygen, and, considering the most Hubby ever does to clean the grill is run a grill brush over it every once in a while, we had p-l-e-n-t-y of fuel going on in there.
So of course the first thing I did was turn the burners off and close the cover, hoping that the flames would go out on their own with less air flow. But this is a gas grill, and it's got excellent ventilation.
On the up side, the children were thrilled to be watching the gas grill, which was sitting on our wooden deck, about 3 feet from our house, with 3 foot flames leaping up out of it. I have to admit, it was pretty impressive.
As the temp rose higher, and the flames continued to burn, I knew I had to take additional action. Knowing this was a grease fire, and dumping water on it could spell disaster, I doused it with baking soda. It actually took a lot less than I thought it would. Whew.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I left the grill to cool down a bit. Eventually, I relit the grill and put the chicken on.
But that's not the end of the story--oh no!
A few minutes later, I went back out to flip and the grill was barely 150*F. Turns out the baking soda had extinguished even the flame coming from the heating elements. Not knowing how else to get it out (should I have taken the shop vac to it?) I dumped about a gallon of water into the grill (I would have turned the hose on it, but the hose is incapacitated right now, which is a whole other story), which worked to remove most of the baking soda, but left me with a huge soggy mess as the water and soda and grease and little bits of "flavor" came pouring out of the grease hole in the bottom.
Man, oh, man, I sure hope you're laughing right now, because gosh, it was funny. Or, that's what I told myself, anyway, to keep myself from collapsing into the fetal position in the corner of the deck.
After all that, we finally sat down to dinner at around 6:30, maybe a little after. But that's still not the end of the story.
Sunday night is dessert night in our house, and we've been in a rut for the past several weeks (OK, months). AKD has a shake, Hubby, MC and Roger have ice cream, and I'm usually too full from supper to have anything. It's a little boring. So when we were planning meals for the week, we decided to have AKD's 5 layer bars for dessert.
AKD took the lead on making them, which was a huge relief considering everything else that was going on. We put the base in to cook a bit before adding everything else on top, and when the timer rang, AKD took it out, then put all the other stuff on top, and put it back in the oven.
I told him I thought another 10 to 15 minutes would do it, but when we checked 10 minutes later, it was still all pretty raw. Into the oven for another 10 minutes, and another, until finally, I realized that the oven was off! Somehow someone had turned off the oven...probably a knee-jerk reaction (we always turn the oven off when whatever we're baking comes out) when AKD took them out the first time.
So the 5 layer bars, which should have been done around 6:45, weren't done until 7:30!
I'm thinking tomorrow is going to be a cereal day.
All I can say is, tomorrow is a new day. Praise God, this one's over.
'Night, friends.
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