The Microwave Incident

Right now there are quite a few things going on. Tristan is toddling all over the place. He also screaming, "No" at me all the time. I have been so careful to not say "no" to him, and of course, the one morning he is banging on the computer with a remote and I say, "No.. no.. no!" He looks at me, laughs, and yells, "No! No! No!" Now he says it all day long while unplugging and plugging in things, playing in the dog's water, and pulling things off shelves.

Whatever. My computer also decided this would be a good time to pick up a nasty virus. So while it spends some time getting scanned, I thought I'd tell y'all about the microwave incident.

I was in the kitchen cooking steak for dinner. Half the kids and the dog were outside. The 8 year old walked in and asked if she could microwave some Hershey Kisses onto pretzels and then add M&M's. Sounded delicious. Unfortunately, the turn table in the microwave wasn't working and anything you put in would burn. I told her no and explained it was broken. She sat there and whined about it for a long time, I just ignored her since I didn't want the steak to burn.

The 11 year old walked in. She is super, super helpful and so sweet. She heard the 8 year old whining. Seeing that I was busy, she thought, "Oh, I will just help the 8 year old so Anna can cook dinner." I never even saw her fill up an entire styrofoam plate of pretzels and Kisses. All I know is all the sudden she is yelping, "Anna?! ANNA!?" I looked over to see massive amounts of black smoke billowing out of the microwave. "Shut the door!!!" I yelled. She was too slow so I slammed the door shut. Hugely irritated at the 8 year old for not listening and super grumpy the house was starting to wreak like smoke I grumbled at them for not listening. Then I made the 11 year old help me carry the smoking microwave out the front door to the porch so we could let it air out. I was pretty proud of myself that the house wasn't full of smoke.

Now that I was outside I noticed the driveway full of bikes, scooters, babies, a dog, children, and toys. "You guys! Get over here and clean this up!" I ordered the 10 year old to keep an eye on the 2 year old. I also said they were to stay outside til the driveway was cleaned. I went back in the house to keep dinner from burning.

Not two seconds later the 10 year old was in the house. "What are you doing?!? Get outside and watch the baby! You can't leave her out there!" I could see the baby peering through the windows on the front porch, smacking the window and waving hi. The 10 year old headed for the front door. "You can NOT go out that door. You HAVE to go out the back door...." then I repeated, "You! Go out the back door!" She wandered away.

A minute later I started smelling smoke.

I looked over and the front door is standing wide open, smoke strolling in like an invited dinner guest.

I slammed the front door shut, stormed out the back door, told the kids they were forbidden to come inside until the driveway was picked up. I locked the back door.

Two seconds later the 1o year old was banging on the back door and the helpful 14 year old let her in, yelling, "Who locked the back door!??!" More kids started pouring in the house.

Frustrated, I yelled at all of them. "Nooo! EVERYONE OUTSIDE NOW!" They moaned and groaned as they filed back out the door.

The 10 year old defended herself, "But I needed to throw away trash!" She held out a small gum wrapper. I shoved her out the door and suggested she use the 96 gallon trash can she walked past to get in the house. I locked the door again.

Not even 3 minutes later they're all screaming at the door that the dog is bleeding to death... and you know the rest.

*sigh*