Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Great Peanut Butter Fiasco

I'm not having a good day. Pull up a chair, though I do promise to keep it short.

I made pancakes for breakfast. I fixed a plate for each of the two boys and went upstairs to take a shower, thinking Max's older brother could keep an eye on him while they ate together. I don't normally do this, because it's just asking for trouble...or mess...or choking...or SOMEthing. But the big kids had dentist appointments and we needed to get moving.

I was just stepping in the shower when I heard, "MO-O-O-O-O-O-M!!! Hurry -- COME HERE!!" I could hear the urgency in my son's voice, so turned off the shower and ran downstairs.

This is what I found.

I had been gone for 5 minutes.

Why was Max so messy? Well, you see, we eat peanut butter on our pancakes. The jar was still sitting out. So was the syrup. My older son finished eating his breakfast quickly and went in the other room to watch t.v.

Max kept eating...by himself.

I have never seen so much misplaced peanut butter in my life. Globs on the floor, blobs on the stools, smears up and down the front of his p.j.s; it was EVERYWHERE. I couldn't believe that much peanut butter could actually fit in one jar! Scroll back up to that first picture -- that jar, my friends, was BRAND NEW this morning. I broke the seal myself.

Now, to his credit (I guess), Max did try to clean things up. He was washing his hands when I found him. And apparently he had already tried wiping them off on the kitchen hand towel.

I took him into the little bathroom off the kitchen to clean up away from the rest of the peanut butter mess...and he had already done some washing up in there, too!!

In addition to the big plops and blobs, the floor was absolutely covered with little crumbles of peanut butter.
I can't even figure out how it got all the places it did. I mean, he left a very obvious trail, and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to piece together where he had gone...but seriously, just exactly how do you get peanut butter on the mini-blinds?!?

It was on the baseboards...

...and also on the oven door.
It was on the window, the window sill, the brick wall...
...and even UNDER the stove??

He must have been flicking his fingers and flapping his hands to get the sticky peanut butter off, flinging the goo hither and yon.

There wasn't even time for me to throw a fit, or yell, or lecture. We had an appointment to get to. I cleaned up the largest plops as quickly as I could, threw Max in the shower right along with me and wiped and soaped and scrubbed (possibly a bit harder than necessary).

I walked right out of the house with the rest of the mess just...there.

With the exception of the pictures Max is actually in, the photos were taken after we returned home. (Yes, that's right -- AFTER the largest blobs were already gone!)

Let me recreate the mess for you in this way: the following is a photo of my kitchen; this is basically what The Great Peanut Butter Fiasco looked like.

We made it to the dentist appointments (albeit a few minutes late).

My daughter has a cavity.

It's POURING outside.

The mess is now cleaned up, and it's way too early for a glass of red wine.

I'm soothing my shattered nerves with an extra mug of strong coffee, chock full of real cream and extra sugar. I am going to go make some sandwiches (TURKEY, thankyouverymuch), and then we are going to go see the Wall-E matinee while eating the biggest bucket of popcorn they sell.

I'm clocking out.

5 comments:

Penny L. Richards said...

Oh my!

Well... at least he doesn't have a peanut allergy?

At my house, the ants would help us find any last remaining blobs--they love peanut butter. I'll send you some ants if it'll help.

Anonymous said...

Penny, so VERY thoughtful of you, but if your ants discover the Secret Trove of Abundant Treasures we have scattered about the floors of our house....well, it's very likely there would be NO ANTS REMAINING IN CALIFORNIA! And that would be extremely rude of me, taking all your ants like that.

However, if you have any extra CHOCOLATE around your house, well now that might be helpful. I could just walk around and dip it here and there in the remaining wall blobs -- Make your own Reese's while getting the cereal out! While doing dishes! While getting a spoon!

Now THERE'S an idea.

PeanutandSweetPea said...

Oh my God!!! THIS made me laugh! Thanks for the endorphin rush! It has been one of those insane mom days, and I really needed that, as I sip my glass of white wine, we ran out of the red!!! =0)

My guy is nonverbal too. I followed you here from Schuyler and Rob's blog. We are learning our BBoW, have had it for six weeks. It will take time, but we will learn it!

Anonymous said...

MOTHER SMUCKER (literally!)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, girl, I don't know HOW you cleaned all that goop up! Max, Max, Max... you are one talented, gooey kid.

Loved this - - it made me smile, but it also made me shiver a bit.... are you STILL finding hidden globs in unusual places?!?!?

YIKES!!!!!

xoox Gwen

Jujyfruit said...

Peanutandsweetpea -- Nice to meet you! I'll drop by your place soon -- I want to read more about your BBoW!

Gwen -- if I ever get around to cleaning again, I'll let you know what I discover. Ha! (let's pretend I really am joking, ok?) :)