I had the best plans for last night. It was going to be all sweet and tender and full of memory making stuff - Tree Decorating Night. I imagined telling Hannah the stories about our ornaments, having a cookie or two, maybe making a cup of cocoa. Nope. Last night we created a new tradition - Burn dinner and run around like you have no idea what you're doing. Yay!
I HATE cooking in oil - like "pour a tablespoon of oil in a skillet then place XXX into the hot oil" kind of cooking in oil. I almost always burn stuff. Well, last night I both burned and undercooked the same food item.
I love Aldi for many reasons. They have a decent selection in the types of food they sell (not choices of brands) and they are happy on my grocery budget. A few months ago I picked up a box of frozen breaded pork tenderloin. I had heard wonderful things. The first time I cooked them, one side was a little darker than I would have liked, but they tasted fine and we had a nice dinner. Last night I burned one side of our dinner black and then turned them over to cook the other side. That side was a beautiful golden brown. When I took our dinner's temperature (I'm a bit scared of cooking pork) it was a good 50 degrees colder than my thermometer's safety guidelines suggested. I set everything aside to cool and walked away from the kitchen.
After dinner had been ruined, Hannah and I decided to put the ornaments on the tree. It was fulled with wonderful, loving phrases like, "AAAH!!! That one is made of glass! Put it down, put it down!" and "I know you love Cookie Monster, but that's mommy's ornament from when she was your age. Oh, please don't cry", and my favorites "Angus, get away from that!", and "Dammit! Algernon, get out from under the tree!" By the time we'd finished it was 7pm and I hadn't fed my kid dinner. Because I'm awesome.
The rest of the night was a whirlwind of eggs, yogurt, Clifford, and bath time. Still, I managed to get Hannah in bed almost on time and somehow convinced her to stay in her bed all night. Our conversation went a little something like this:
Me: "If you stay in your bed tonight you will get flat eggs for breakfast tomorrow morning and you will get to eat your Advent calendar chocolate."
Hannah: "But I like to sleep in your bed. It's one of my rules."
Me: "No, the rule is to sleep in your own bed."
Hannah: "Okay. But I don't want eggs anyway."
Me: "You won't get chocolate. There will be. no. candy."
Hannah: "Oh. Well, okay. G'night Mommy."
I bribed her with chocolate at breakfast. And I'm not ashamed.
The best part of the night was when I started walking downstairs and smelled the wonderful Chinese feast Bryan had brought home from Kin Lin. We both agreed I should ruin dinner more often. Perhaps we've started a new family tradition, just not the one we were expecting.
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1 comment:
I too have learned that even with the best laid plans, you can not plan traditions or memory-making events...they all just sort of happen in their own way. I've also finally come to accept that it's best that I just go with the flow instead of creating grandeous visions of how things should happen, because EVERYONE is much happier if Mommy isn't disappointed. :o)
Andrea
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