One of those days.

It’s been one of those days. Well, since supper preparation.

We had Cincinnati chili—pretty easy. Well, Rachel happened to be watching as I opened the cans of tomato soup and politely asked that I pour them while she sat on my hip. “You pour soup, Mama? I watch? Bees?” I did, remembering after that I should have spooned off the fat first.
Sigh. Before I stirred the soup in, I tried shoving the soup-topped mass to one side while I tried to drain it. The pan has very short handles so I was wearing an oven mitt. Smart, right?
Not so much. As I was doing this, I smelled something funny. Is that the soup burning against the side of the pan? Nuts, that’s not going to taste good. Giving up on the grease as I’d used turkey anyway, I set the pan down.
And realized my hand was on fire. Yep, our gas stove had ignited my oven mitt. I managed to blow it out and douse it in the sink without the smoke detector (fresh batteries last week!) going off.

Then after dinner, the kids decided they were still hungry. The Mature-and-Responsible one got out the noodles left from supper. [She didn’t want the oatmeal-raisin cookies sitting on the table. Have I mentioned my kids are weird?] She’s generous too, so all three children were sitting in the living room with roughly 4.5 cups of cooked, cooled spaghetti.
Two of the three know their limitations and took small handfuls. I was finishing cleaning out the fridge, which involved disposal of the last vestiges of Christmas dinner. Rachel in a blatant denial of reality took in both hands a lump about as big as Daddy’s fist and proceeded to mash her face into it. Irretrievably…
She decided she was done before it was gone and thus scattered it on the floor. Lucy got it when she came in from barking at phantasms.

Just before going for bath, I asked Rachel, “So what do you think?”
She replied, “Sank you, Mama.”
“For what?”
“Noodles!”

Just in case that wasn't enough to make you laugh, here's a sampling of what we're hearing.

Madeleine: Excellent!

Or: "I'm going to my happy place." She got that one from me.

Or all three, generally to Daddy:

"You're a loony."

To all those who think I should be at work instead of homeschooling my kids: just think. Then *I* could be having an influence on yours. Mwah-ha-ha!!