Why Bother?

So we finally hit our summer "low" last week. I only cooked twice. Here's what happened:
ACCIDENT #1: I made pancakes for my kids one morning. It's pretty much been self-serve breakfast all summer. It's bad enough that this griddle has only had 3 legs for almost a year now. But now sweet little Dylan drags off the griddle by the unplugged cord (it has cooled by now), taking the leg count down to 2, and rendering it useless.

"WHY does he do this?"

you might ask. Because when we removed the babyproofing from the cupboards in June to redo them, he discovered the TWO griddle cords that we have, and he's made them his favorite kitchen "toy" ever since. They've been turned into guns. And he occasionally will plug them in when he "shoots" them. At least, until I find him and quickly unplug them. So naturally, he thought that this "gun" was just on the counter waiting for him to pick it up.

"Why do we have TWO cords?"

Because 2 years ago (I think), Ellie knocked off our first griddle while it was drying on the counter. The sweet girl then got me a new one for my birthday a few months later. HOWEVER, the same thing quickly happened to the new one, only I can't remember which child, which is why it had 3 legs until last week.

ACCIDENT #2: AND THIS ONE'S A DOOZIE. I make dinner for the first time in a long while, salmon even. I turned both ovens on to preheat, and obviously not learning my lesson from the ziploc bags, start to smell something. Just as the oven is done preheating, I look over and see flames in my oven. I open it to see what it is, and of course the flames just get bigger. I rush to get the fire extinguisher, and when I come back the flames are gone, and this is what I find:Once I finally figure out what it used to be (I first thought that was frosting on the top!), I ask around to find out which one of my children put the Tupperware filled with cookies in my oven. As Ellie is confessing (and laughing), she tells me, "Nani always says to check your oven BEFORE you preheat it!" Yeah, let's hope it doesn't take a third time.

And of course while I was trying to rid the house of the toxic burning plastic fumes, Dylan capitalized on the window being open. He kept climbing in and out, quite amused with himself.