The day started off innocently enough. Sydney hitched a ride to school with our next-door-neighbor, and Lorelei, Ford, and I prepared for a pretty intense grocery shopping trip to the commissary. (The reason it was intense is because we had little to eat in the house. I tried to make the girls share the last turkey hot dog yesterday morning as the protein part of their breakfast, but they politely declined, even after I offered them a piece of chocolate in exchange for eating said hot dog. Which meant that I had the pleasure of eating the last turkey hot dog for breakfast. And that was yesterday morning, not this morning. I can't even remember what any of us ate for breakfast this morning.)
By the way, my last trip to the grocery store was last Sunday, not six months ago. WHO KEEPS EATING ALL THE FOOD?!?!
Anyway, we went to the grocery store, Ford fell asleep on the way home, and I let him stay in the warm car snoozing (keep in mind it's 30-ish degrees outside here, that's why the car was warm) while Lorelei and I began to unload the groceries.
On my first trip from the car to the front door I was carrying my diaper bag and two grocery bags, which included Sydney's sushi (for lunch), eggs, and some chips. We made it into the front door...and I dropped the eggs.
The carton was still inside of the plastic grocery bag, but I knew as soon as I heard them hit the ground that it wasn't good. Sure enough, nine of twelve eggs were cracked.
What do you do with eight cracked eggs (one was a lost cause)? I'll tell you (isn't that why you're reading this blog in the first place?)!
But before you do anything with the eggs, you finish carrying the groceries from the car to the house, quickly put away the cold items, shove the non-perishable items into the corner so that you can put them away later, try to make room on the limited counter space of your 5' x 5' kitchen (yes, you read that right) which still held this morning's dirty breakfast dishes (proof that we actually consumed breakfast this morning!), and retrieve Ford from the car. Thankfully, Ford seems happy to crawl around the house while you direct your attention to dealing with the eggs, and Lorelei is who knows where doing lawd only knows...
You scramble the four most broken eggs, and serve them to Lorelei for lunch, along with a bowl of Trix that she talked you into buying at the commissary. Since Lorelei cannot eat four scrambled eggs, you heat up last night's leftover spaghetti noodles and toss the rest of the scrambled eggs on top for your own lunch. (Why are you even concerned with eating lunch yourself right now? Because you are starving, and might start yelling at unsuspecting children if you don't elevate your blood sugar levels quickly.) As you scarf down your own lunch, you make frequent trips into the dining room to tend to the needs of Queen Lorelei (help me get the last bite of eggs! I need a spoon! more cereal, please!), and then help her clean her hands and mouth once she's finished.
Amidst all this, you have managed to use another egg to make a batch of blueberry muffins that you will serve for breakfast tomorrow (not from scratch, of course, from a box -- just add milk and one egg!). You smell something suspicious, realize that Ford is looking quite satisfied, and pick him up so that he doesn't end up with a leaky diaper and in need of a clothing change. You hear Lorelei shout, "I'm finished!" from the upstairs bathroom (I swear, children love making "poop" pacts), and prepare to head upstairs to help her and to change Ford's diaper. But, wait! There are only two minutes left until the muffins are done, so it would be silly to head upstairs yet! You holler at Lorelei that you'll "be right up!" and watch the timer count down to zero. You remove the muffins from the oven, sprint upstairs with Ford under one arm, strap him to the changing table and put a bottle of milk in his hands to prevent screaming and escaping, head to the bathroom to help Lorelei complete her own business, and then return to Ford's room to change stinky man's diaper.
Before this, and while the blueberry muffins were cooking, you were able to use another egg to make a (boxed) batch of corn muffins, which you will serve for dinner tonight with...something. Canned chili? As soon as you took the blueberry muffins out of the oven, you put the corn muffins in to start baking, dealt with the poop pact, then headed back downstairs to feed Ford a quick lunch before heading out to pick Sydney and the neighbor up from school.
During this time you decide to use the last two cracked eggs to make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough (this time from scratch!). I (I'm switching back to personal pronouns now) looked at my go-to recipe...and realized I had no brown sugar. So I Googled, "substitute for brown sugar." Excellent! You can use the same amount of white sugar, but add two tablespoons of molasses per substituted cup. But, wait...I had no molasses either. Google's answer to "substitute for molasses" was using equal parts honey, dark corn syrup, or maple syrup (maple syrup it is!), but warned that it wouldn't have the same "robust flavor as molasses." Fine by me, seeing as I only needed molasses because I didn't have any brown sugar on hand. I love Google.
By this time it was 12:10, and I needed to clean up Ford and get everyone into jackets and out the door so that we could pick up Sydney at 12:30. So I waited to start making the cookie dough until we were home from school. Right now, as I type, the cookie dough is complete (no baked cookies yet), Lorelei and Ford are napping, and Sydney is next door playing. The kitchen still looks like a bomb went off (I decided to write this blog post rather than clean and stow non-perishable groceries), but since the egg incident, the day has settled back into its normal groove.
Well, that's all I have, I suppose. Apparently, according to the title of this blog post, dropping a carton of eggs on the floor and dealing with the aftermath qualifies you to run for President. If you made it this far -- thanks for reading!
Speaking of reading, this morning I finished a novel called Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead, about the world or professional ballet. It was excellent -- I highly recommend it.
Happy Tuesday!
1 comment:
WOW! Hectic doesn't even begin to describe your day! Years from now (when you re-read this) you'll wonder how you were able to manage it all......
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