2 alarm fire

Dearest children, Something happened tonight that was a little heart-stopping.

I think the world actually held still when I realized that I had left a pot holder in the oven by accident.

And that the oven was cranked up to 450 degrees.

So, the pot holder was aflame inside the oven, which is highly ironic when you think about the fact that a potholder is supposed to protect your hand from getting burned.

Instead it was doing a really good job of being totally flamboyant.

Because this wasn't just another stop off on your mother's hot mess express train, like how she gets dressed for the gym in the dark every day so she arrives wearing yoga pants inside out and two different shoes--No, it turned a shade more serious rather swiftly.

Little Man, you emerged to watch your mother think fast as to whether the house was equipped with a fire extinguisher or was that a house at which she babysat in 1994?

You saw her take a cloth diaper out of a cabinet and use the cloth diaper as a POTHOLDER to remove the potholder aflame in the oven.

You said, "Fire! Oh, fire! Oh, gonna call the fire trucks! Fire trucks coming!" but you didn't get hysterical which was a boon to your mother's ability to extinguish the fire from a potholder with an ad hoc potholder.

Little Man, you then stood frozen as both smoke detectors in the kitchen started mouthing off yelling, "WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE"

You watched as your mother regained her senses and held the two potholders under a running faucet and managed handily to save the kitchen that does not belong to her, even though burning down the house would totally have gone along with the theme of this past year and damaged property. Hah. Just tryin' to be thematic I was!

After your 4'10" mother somehow got the smoke alarms on the ceiling to shut their big mouths, you looked at me with some tears in your eyes and I thought you were scared and maybe you were a little, but really it was more probably the smoke irritating your sweet little brown eyes.

Baby Girl, I'd just like to thank you for being unflappable as well, and by that I mean I want to thank you for sitting in the other room and turning two deaf ears to the smoke alarms and panic attacks happening in the next room, staying completely and absolutely occupied on your mother's laptop, probably picking out Cinderella's outfit for princess pilates on DisneyJunior.com. I know it was hard to stay that focused and not be tempted to come and see if everyone was okay, but far be it from me to say you weren't taking one for the team.

I still love the guts out of both of you and am glad we and our kitchen escaped this culinary crisis fairly unscathed.

Love, Mama *** Little Man by my side

Baby Girl gaming with her boy Tiny C.

 

Fall

The kids have been getting back to serious play. You know, flipping your bike upside down to make ice cream. Sitting on the rock in the flower bed and using it as your cash register in your flower shop. Serious business, this imaginative play. I've been a more than willing participant, because if the kids need play, then I am a wilting flower wanting for the water and sunlight of being outside with sidewalk chalk. I think the oven temperatures of summer, complete with the ticks, mosquitoes, and other pestilences are on the wane ::knocks on wood:: The hot summer can really hamper children's play is what I have learned. We don't even have cable but the mediated life has a way of eclipsing the active imaginative life that it sort of atrophies. Shameful, really.

So I am welcoming the cooler temperatures (even though it is still hot enough to sweat whilst walking at mid-day here) and I am welcoming afternoons that are still sunlit.

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Looking forward to this fall: - Going to Gatlinburg with six other families - Soup Swap - Chattanooga Market and all the harvesty produce and merch therein - My sister and her beaufriend visiting and watching my sister ace a half-mar in October - Running a 5k in early November - Cousin Justin from Canadia coming for Turksgiving - Going back to Fork & Pie for pumpkin pie

*** Some snaps from our outing to Rock City which is totally awesome and you all have to come to #CHA and experience!

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