The Cleavers We're Not

The sweet and sticky chicken almost took us down tonight.

It's really unfortunate. It's a great recipe from Christiane back in the days at ATT when we had so much fun at work we almost peed our pants laughing every day. That was, of course, before we worked a 36-hours-straight shift and got laid off. But I digress.

As I started throwing the chicken in the pan, Jasper opened one of the last cabinet doors without safety latches and pulled out a ceramic dish that he then dropped on the floor, watching it shatter into a gazillion pieces. He was bare foot. I was bare foot. I had raw chicken in my hands.

I called for Seth, and managed to pick up Jasper without touching him with my wet-raw-chicken fingers. Seth appeared, and I shoved Jasper into his arms and started cleaning up the broken bowl. That's when I should have stopped.

After the cleanup, the cooking continued, and Jasper romped around the room, now taking his pants off whenever he pleased. The heat from the pan set the smoke alarm off, which, in turn, made Jasper cry. Baby crying on my hip, I am waving a kitchen towel at the alarm to get it to shut off. Then it goes off again. And again.

My mother-in-law will not be impressed because there was neither smoke nor flames. She's got the kitchen-fire-thing down. She once started a fire in her kitchen and managed to actually clean up and repaint before my father-in-law got home. This is a woman I can learn from, folks.

While I was cooking, Jasper had something in the works himself. He had a poopy diaper that Dad had to manage. Given Jasper's tendency to flip and climb and crawl, Seth actually straps him into the changing pad. And it's on the floor. All I hear on the monitor sitting on the kitchen counter is F*&$# -- D@#%* and the like. According to Seth (who snapped the boys hands down next to his side), Jasper couldn't keep his hands off of his dirty diaper area.

Finally, we all sit down to dinner and Seth asks why the floor is so sticky. After pan-frying the chicken, there was a layer of grease over every horizontal surface within 30 miles I suspect. This just pushed me over the edge. I saw the little foot prints in the greasy floor, too, but for some reason when Seth suggested I clean it, I just lost it.

The chicken was good, we all agreed. But not that good, Seth said, for this kind of mess. I sent my boys upstairs for bath and bed. I was a little disappointed when Seth came back downstairs. I was hoping he'd put himself to bed too.

Oh well. I spent the next hour cleaning the kitchen and nursing a glass of wine. Or two. Another day. Another dinner.