It's Late...

And I really should be sleeping. But I'm not, so here goes the story I shall call "Monday Madness: The Mom who was on Fire"

This is was one of my kitchen rags. Sad little burned thing it is. Bailey needed it to wipe his hands off during his science experiment data collecting this afternoon. His science experiment is on our BBQ. Now, many science experiments sadly end in explosions. However, the prevented grass fire had nothing to do with his experiment but more my inability to multi task.

It all started as a lovely day. A little boot camp in the morning, some laundry in the afternoon. But there is this point in the day I like to call the witching hour. It is from 4-5 p.m. This is the point when the natives get restless. They are hungry, tired and usually pretty annoyed at one another for breathing. I usually have a handle on this hour as I am not a newbie.  But today, I decided I could get multiple things done at once to try to save time. And why not throw caution to the wind and just do it at the peak of craziness? So, I was making dinner (well, enough food to use in three dinners this week), baking cookies that needed to be dropped off that evening, directing nightly clean up, convincing Emma that her life is not doomed to boredom, Nathan that he doesn't need his best friend with us 24/7, Kate that she couldn't wear all of my high heels at once, Addison that we don't draw on the walls and Bailey that designing a project for school takes longer than 30 seconds.

Let's pause for a breath....

 

 

All of a sudden, I smell smoke. I remembered I was heating up the BBQ, but quickly dismissed there being a real problem. I just assumed it was dirty and needed to be scrubbed a bit. But, the smoke was pretty strong so I thought I should take a look. I walked out and saw nasty smoke coming from the BBQ on the side, only to discover that it was not the BBQ but the rag sitting next to it. I picked it up and it about burst into flames. To my left was our half dead back yard, full of lovely fire starters, to my right a large pile of wood. I tried to quickly blow on it, wave it around, but apparently that only causes flames. So I threw it on the ground, ready to stomp on it when I remembered I was barefoot...

It was a nice surprise to see a burning piece of paper on the other side of the BBQ also on fire. This was all right next to poor Bailey's science experiment of three glasses (one filled with water, one with rotting milk and one with vinegar--and some chicken bones). I grabbed the paper on the tiniest piece left that was not burning and threw it down with the rag. By now, all the children had gathered at the doorway, so I had to practically push them out of the way to get in the house while the flames grew.

I grabbed the baking soda canister and booked it back outside in time to dump it on the flames (that were dancing in the slight breeze). The End.

It all seemed much more dramatic in the moment. All is well and we even survived the Witching Hour. And I realized it is now officially Tuesday, which means I have survived Monday. Good night.