Dinner prep

Every once in a while, I like to give a little glimpse into the craziness of our house.  I love doing what I do, but there are times when it is just too much and a mommy needs to get out of the house. 

To babysit someone else's children.  (Yes, that's what I did. Now I realize why I was so very wrong to think that I'd have no problem being a mother for the first time because I'd done so much babysitting.  The two are not alike in the least. That was a piece of cake.  And there was wine.)

Here's how tonight's dinner preparation went:

I was using a meal that I had to add my own shrimp to, so it's basically just seasoning the shrimp and cooking it and then cooking the pasta that it gets served with.

I set the three boys up at the table with some new coloring books and new crayons, (well, Jack with a new doodle pad and sharpened pencil 'cause that's how he rolls), since the box for the meal says it takes about 15 minutes. Blarney is at the bark-her-ever-loving-head-off stage, so I have her gated in the (postage stamp-sized) kitchen with me.

The boys did their thing for about one minute. Then PJ wanted to show Jack how to play the box game (you know, finish the box by connecting the dots and put your initial inside. I just showed him that yesterday) well, Jack wouldn't let PJ use the pencil, there was yelling and hitting and finally Jack spit (!) on the book so I gave him a time out. He screamed "no!" and I gave him the option of a time out by itself or a time out with a spank. He opted for the first, but threw a toy across the room before he went to the time-out spot. That's an automatic smack on the hand for him today since that was his fifth toy throwing for the day, and he was warned. I'm sauteing shrimp and the water is boiling for the pasta, but I go over the gate, smack his hand, and Blarney grabs something off the counter. 

I come back, turn down the shrimp, add the pasta, get the papers from Blarney. She's looking for something else to get, so I squirt her with some water in a squirt bottle as I tell her no, then Thomas is trying to climb over the gate into the kitchen, so I squirt him with some water too, which sends him screaming (it was not my finest mommy moment, admittedly), then Thomas goes back to the table and falls off his bench. 

Over the gate again, kiss the booboo, back to drain the pasta quick so it doesn't overcook, bring Blarney outside. finish up with the shrimp, add the seasonings to the pasta, combine the two and Blarney is scratching the shizzle out of our screen door so I bring her back into the kitchen. Jack hits PJ with a plastic sword and PJ is screaming. I head back over the gate to separate and threaten the two of them with timeouts. 

Then I go back to kitchen to finish stirring, and Blarney has left a puddle on the floor. I pick her up to take her back out onto the deck - this time leaving the screen open and just closing the glass - and realize that she must have walked in it too because where her paws touched my teeshirt is soaked. I ran upstairs to change my shirt and come down to Blarney out on the deck barking, Thomas asking me to read him a book for the thirtieth time, and Jack and PJ seeing how far they can run and slide on their knees on the new laminate floor. I'm counting down the minutes until we're going to need stitches from that new game.

Dinner is ready, but now I'm sweating and exhausted. 

15 minutes my arse.

Wondering how long it will be before I'll have the time to cook something from scratch...