#hubby and i are going away and I’m hoping I’ll be able to rejuvenate

[xskyll]

Page 15, for the second time! Apologies to those that saw the version I posted last night with the typo. My days lately have been busy, so sometimes I feel a bit brain foggy. A couple of people left comments on either here or Twitter and it killed me to delete everything. ;_;

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[kewpieandco]

Mommy’s Little Helper

September 9, 2017

It is an exhilarating moment when your child successfully goes down for a nap.  It means you have an hour or two of freedom from booger wiping and dirty diaper changing where you can just do whatever you want!! (Mainly laundry, dishes, bills, dusting, sweeping, mopping, cooking, ironing and the like.  But hey, freedom is freedom!)

On this particular day, I decided that cooking would be my activity of choice during my moments of freedom.  Kewpie was sound asleep in her crib and I was anticipating a nice long nap, and thus lots of time to get my tasks done.  I was making quiche for dinner so my first order of business was to make the crust.  Feeling extra ambitious, I resolved to make a triple batch of dough and save the other two portions for future meals.  That was my first mistake.

When you have a young child, never attempt to do more than you know with absolute certainty that you have time for.  I was elbow deep in my gooey mixture of butter, flour, and cream cheese when Teddy, our mischievous cat, flounced into the room.  She jumped on the counter and attempted to take a bite of my dough.  I swatted her away and pushed her off of the counter with my shoulder.  Well it doesn’t take much to offend a cat and apparently I had crossed the line.

With a backwards glance that said, “Now you’ll pay for the error of your ways,” Teddy trotted down the hall, pushed Kewpie’s door open, and stood in the center of her bedroom.  I knew what was coming and I tried desperately to stop it!

“Teddy, NO! Get out!!” I hissed in a harsh whisper as I dashed toward her with my dough covered arms held out in front of me.  Too late.

“MEEEEEEEEOOOOOOWWW!” said Teddy, a slight sneer seemed to flicker across her whiskered face.

Kewpie sat bolt upright, grabbed the sidebars on her crib, focused her sleepy eyes, and answered Teddy’s call,  “MAAAAAAAAWWW!”

Nooooooooo!  I dropped to my knees and let my head sink onto the floor.  It was over.  All hopes of completing my plans without the interruption of having to fish cheerios out of my child’s ears were dashed, all because I had irritated the cat.

But maybe my freedom could still be salvaged?!  Maybe if I slipped out of sight before Kewpie saw me, she would simply go back to sleep, and I could continue on with my business.  I backed up slowly and tried to flatten myself against the wall behind the bedroom door so Kewpie couldn’t see me.  No such luck.  She wailed in protest and I knew the dream was dead.

I quickly washed my hands and walked into Kewpie’s bedroom at the same moment that Teddy walked out.  We passed one another in silence, each of us glaring at the other.  My look saying to her, “I’m going to send you to bed with no dinner.”  And her look saying, “Good, I’ll catch a mouse for dinner and share half of it with you.”  Cats are incorrigible.

Luckily Kewpie had awoken in a good mood.  She assured me that fifteen minutes of sleep had been enough to rejuvenate her spirit and she was ready for our next adventure.  I told her to go play with Teddy while I finished cooking dinner.  She obeyed for several minutes, during which time she covered Teddy, who was trying to take a nap on the floor, with every book she could find.  But when the fun of burying the cat wore off she became far more interested in what I was doing.

Kewpie yanked on my legs and strained to see what was happening with all of the bowls on the counter.  I told her I was making dinner, so she yanked harder to tell me that she wanted to make dinner too.  Realizing that I was not going to be able to finish my project without some adaptation, I moved my mixing bowl to the floor and sat down on the ground with Kewpie.  

“First we have to beat these eggs,” I said.  Kewpie’s eyes lit up when she saw me start to whisk the eggs into a swirly yellow puddle.  The temptation was too much.  She grabbed the fork out of my hands and started mixing the eggs vigorously.   I figured this would be the only way I could finish dinner so I let Kewpie continue to mix while I prepared the other ingredients.  Little did I know that she had more in mind than simply mixing.  I turned from my position at the refrigerator just in time to see Kewpie putting the finishing touches of slimy egg yolk decorations on her legs.

“No Kewpie!” I said, snatching a paper towel to clean up the mess.  “You can’t touch raw eggs because you might get salmonella!”

Kewpie, undaunted at the prospect of contracting a life threatening disease, continued to look at me while she slowly stuck one finger back into the eggy bowl, daring the salmonella to attack.

“No more touching eggs,” I said.  “Here, let’s add the cheese.”

Kewpie stared in fascination as I grated cheese over the bowl, little shreds of yellow tumbling down into the egg mixture.  Kewpie loves cheese, and little pieces of cheese ribbons must be even more delicious than normal cheese right?!  She made a grab for a clump of cheese, dripping with egg slime, but I intercepted the contraband right before it hit her eager, open mouth.  I gave her some non contaminated cheese to chew on and told her to keep mixing.

She threw all of her energy into mixing and babbled with delight each time I added a new ingredient.  At one point I had to go back to the refrigerator to get the spinach.  When I turned around I saw that some food had sloshed out of the bowl during Kewpie’s aggressive mixing and that she was now carefully picking fuzz off of pieces of ham and then throwing them back into the bowl with satisfied gusto.  I decided I would not tell Hubby about this part of our meal preparation until after we had eaten dinner…

A few more spills later, and the quiche was finished.  All that was left to be done was to put the filling into the crust and bake.  

“This is how we finish putting the quiche together,” I told Kewpie, showing her how to spread the mixture over the crust.  Once again she assumed command of the dinner and grabbed my spatula.  She quickly impaled the nice smooth quiche and started hacking at it as if to release some pent-up rage.

After rescuing the quiche from Kewpie’s outburst of violence, I told her that she could have a snack while I did the dishes.  I put some cheese and crackers on a plate and placed it on the floor for her to eat at her leisure.  I heard the dogs whining from my bedroom.  They love snack time because Kewpie always “accidentally” drops goodies for them to clean up.  But luckily today they were in my bedroom, unable to escape because the baby gate stood securely in the doorway.

With Kewpie happily munching on crackers behind me I was able to begin doing the dishes.

“MA!” said Kewpie, using the sign language to indicate that she wanted more food.

“You’re hungry today, aren’t you?” I said, putting more crackers on Kewpie’s plate.

Kewpie just nodded her head enthusiastically and kept chewing.  A few dishes later, and I heard, “MAA!” again.  I turned around and the crackers that I had given her just a few moments ago were gone!

“Wow Kewpie, you are scarfing these crackers down today!” I said.  I was a bit suspicious that something was amiss, but I put more crackers on my child’s plate anyway.  I kept doing dishes, but turned around more often to see what Kewpie was up to.  I noticed that the dogs whined again and Kewpie’s eyebrows went up as if to say, “That’s my cue!”

She pushed her chubby little body up to a standing position, grabbed a handful of crackers, and toddled quietly down the hall.  I watched without a word as Kewpie thrust an abundance of cracker crumbs and cheese particles over the baby gate and into my bedroom where the patiently waiting dogs gobbled up her generous offering.  You could almost see the three of them winking at each other and saying, “Haha, Mom will never know!”  I ducked back behind the corner as Kewpie returned to her place on the kitchen floor.

“MAA!" Kewpie said innocently.

“My goodness, Kewpie!” I said with mock surprise. “You certainly are hungry today!”

Kewpie smiled proudly and thumped her plate, insisting that I work on getting those crackers a little faster.  The dogs whined again, and seeing that I was still doing dishes, oblivious to all that was going on, Kewpie set off on her secret mission down the hall.  

I saw her throw a few shattered crackers onto the ground behind the gate and then hold out a whole cracker towards Juno.  He sniffed Kewpie’s hand, then gently nibbled a corner off of her tasty treat.  Kewpie then promptly shoved the rest of that same cracker into her mouth.  She turned to go fetch more loot, but jumped in surprise when she saw me standing at the end of the hallway, blocking her path to the kitchen.

“Kewpie?!” I said.  “Why were you smuggling all of your crackers to the dogs?!”

Kewpie burst into a huge smile, cracker crumbs tumbling out of her mouth.  She laughed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands over and over.  She had been caught, but she wasn’t sorry one bit.  She and the animals are in cahoots, and I expect that is how it will always be.