Day Eight: Who's the Traitor?

Well I didn't post anything for two days because there was nothing new to report. The friggin crock pot is still in the sink. I've done sink-full after sink-full of dishes, each time leaving the dish in question behind. At this point I'm convinced that someone has tipped Zach off because not only has he not washed it, but he hasn't even said anything. Who is it? I thought for sure he'd have done it by now, at least out of guilt for having been doing so many side jobs lately.

Nor have I take any pictures of it because I've grown apathetic about the whole thing. I doubt anyone else is enjoying reading about it anymore, maybe nobody else thought it was funny to begin with.

The only thing that has changed is that the stagnant water in the crock has grown cloudy. It really smells too. Not like a big emanating smell, but if you stick your face in there a little bit of your nose hair seems to get burnt off. Yesterday for some reason I was like a butterfingers doing the dishes and things kept falling off the drying rack into the schmaltz water. And today Jacob was throwing around one of Sabine's toys like it was a baseball. Into the water it went.

This morning before he left for his current paint job, Zach told me the faucet in the kitchen is really acting up (because it is only six years old and leaks like crazy) and that I should try not to use it today. Is he kidding me? Is he trying to get a rise out of me, daring me to not wash the crock pot?

I may have just done myself in though. I promised to make this a completely natural experiment, with no prompting of Zach to do the dishes or anything like that. No mentioning of it at all. I just wanted to see how many days it would take my husband to wash a dish that is just SITTING THERE, growing things.

Well we were both just standing there in the kitchen, right next to the sink, I was off the the left cleaning something up from dinner and there were just a shit ton of dishes. The absurdity of the situation struck me. There is this nasty dish sitting in the sink and I'm trying to ignore it. Zach knows I am as anal as they come, how can he not notice this dish in the sink and not realize it must be bugging the shit out of me?? We're both standing there not mentioning the elephant in the room. Does he really not see this?

I really, really just wanted to sit down and type this out so I sort of asked Zach if he would do some dishes. "You know, just some of these around here on the counter, just to get some of them out of the way." I tried to cover. If Zach washed the crock because of what I said, then I will have to admit defeat by a technicality. I will not have been the one to wash it, but I cracked nevertheless.

My urging might have been the thing to throw him over the edge. When I walked into the living room to hang out with Jacob I heard the kitchen faucet start to run. Will this be the conclusion? We'll see...

Day Six: Baby Steps

Here we are at day 6. There is much to report on.

Yesterday morning all four of us were up before Zach left for work (a rarity). Things were happening in the kitchen, breakfasts were being prepared, messes were being made, so much was going on that I didn't notice the crock had been moved.
Upon further investigation I saw that the 'schmaltz', as I have been informed is the technical word for what's going on in that dish (thanks Pegeen, and yes, it was cream of mushroom), had been dumped.
Where could it be? A quick search produced the answer. Zach had dumped it into an empty cereal bag. We use these bags for compost, so I guess that's what he had in mind for the schmaltz? I don't think the stuff is appropriate for the compost, not unless we want our children's children growing a fifth limb (considering we use the compost on our vegetable garden); not to mention the fact that you can't compost meat waste anyway. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though because that bag was probably the best option as we wouldn't want any leakage into the garbage.
The thing is, this mess was just sitting on a kiddie table in the middle of the kitchen. Did he think it was it was going to get up and walk itself to the garbage? Actually, I'm inclined to believe that might be true - take a look at the close-up, I'm pretty sure the schmaltz is about to grow legs.
I'm sorry for that picture. I hope you weren't planning to eat for the rest of the day.

Zach came home at lunchtime yesterday and so we were all in the kitchen again. I was making lunch and he was playing with the kids. At one point he was fiddling around with something near the crock. He pointed out the crock and said, "Look Pookie, I emptied that out for you." My brain was screaming expletives but I had to keep my cool and responded in a neutral tone, "Oh, thanks." For ME? How does he figure that was for me? It was his chicken and his job to clean it up.

That evening I cooked a pretty involved dinner which produced many dishes. I was working hard to knock them off when Zach came downstairs from getting Sabine ready for bed. He informed me she was ready to nurse and could I please take her right away? He would finish the dishes.

I guess what he meant was some dishes because it appears that when the drying rack was full, Zach stopped washing dishes. I didn't realize this until this morning. I'm ashamed that I often go to bed with the kitchen left in shambles. It never used to be that way - I wouldn't be able to sleep unless everything was clean. Now I guess I'm just so exhausted all the time that falling asleep isn't as much of a problem as it used to be.

At some point this morning after the kids were fed and I had time to address the situation forming in and around the kitchen sink, I suddenly noticed the crock was gone. I actually looked in the box for it before realizing it was just in the sink. Soaking, apparently.
Oh good. Some of my cooking utensils are in there soaking as well. Soaking up some nice chicken ooze. Those were fun to clean. Halfway through doing the dishes I needed my little plastic scraper to get some gunk off of last night's casserole dish. I couldn't find it where it's usually kept and I got the feeling in my gut that it was at the bottom of this:
Yup, I had to reach in there and pull it out.

Anyway, here's where it stands: I've done dishes a couple times today, leaving only the crock pot behind. I know Zach's been in the kitchen several times today. In fact, he even washed his paint brushes out in the sink. Everyone else is in bed for the night, so I know it's not getting done today. Zach has to leave early to paint again. We'll see what the status is when I get up.

Jacob's Birthday Party

So Jacob turned six last week! He'd been talking about his birthday party for many months and requesting certain details, themes, etc. I decided that rather than one big party (too many people in the house at once) with family and a few close friends, we'd make this the year that the dreaded 'friend party/family party' split happened. Although, things were so crazy with other celebrations/Halloween/work schedules that we never got around to having the family party.

The last cake request I remember getting from Jacob was a baseball, or maybe it was just the easiest. When I picked Beckie's brain about it she recommended using a mixing bowl to bake it in. I did a large mixing bowl for the biggest part, a round cake pan for what would be the base, and a small mixing bowl for what would be the top.

I wrapped them in saran wrap (the keep the moisture in) and froze them (easier to frost). Some trimming had to be done to make them all form into the shape of a ball. While it didn't come out perfect, I think it looked pretty good for a cake-artist novice.

The frosting was what took the longest because, alas, my impatience kicked in and I took them out of the freezer before they were done freezing. So all the crumbs kept chunking up while I was spreading on the frosting.
But there it is. Close enough, right? The red stitching looks different than what I had envisioned, but I didn't have to do it myself so that's the price I pay. Also, the nozzle wasn't fine enough so the lettering was too big to write anymore than Jacob's name and a 6. But it tasted awesome just the same and he really liked it!I got one of those 'all ready to be decorated' crafts because I thought the kids would need something fun to do when they first came in and I was still running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I thought it would be nice if they had a craft to make that didn't fully involve recycled materials so I let Jacob pick one out and he went with the flower pot. I'd intended to dry some of the pumpkin seeds from our garden and put them in little baggies for the kids to plant in the spring, sort of as a little party favor, but that never happened.

I'd wanted to do an outdoor scavenger hunt with the kids, but I was afraid of what the weather might be like so that sort of morphed into a treasure hunt with a twist to take place indoors. I took photographs of certain objects or patterns in the house, printed them out and then cut them into puzzle pieces.

Each 'puzzle' was placed in a baggie (purchased especially for this occasion because lord knows I never have baggies) and then labeled each one with a child's name. The party guests in attendance ranged in age from 2 to 7 so I wanted to make sure every kid got a chance to solve a puzzle and the bigger kids didn't just take over. Forethought, people. I actually tailored each kid's puzzle to their age and whatnot.
The first clue was given out, and it took them an incredibly long time to figure out that the place they should be headed was the milk box on the front steps. And over half of the kids at the party get the same milk delivered that we do, so I thought this would be easy. Within the milk box was the first picture clue. It had to be pieced together and then identified. Once identified, the kids had to find where in the house that object was (eg. a green lattice picture frame). Behind that picture frame was the next clue, and so on.
The kids really liked this activity and I was so excited to have come up with an idea like that, but it took a really long time. The one thing I need to do differently next time is make the puzzles easier! The 2 year old's puzzle was four square pieces, but what I should have done is just give him a plain ole picture in one piece. And then for the rest of the kids I would give them four pieces instead of the sever or eight they got. Plus I cut them up into crazy shapes - will just stick with normal lines and whatnot next time.

The last clue was a picture of our shower curtain, and I'd given that one to Jacob so he could be the one to find the 'treasure'. He could not figure out what the hell it was. Shower much? Anyway, someone eventually did and they tore upstairs and into the shower.
This is the pinata that Jacob and I made from scratch! Ew, please ignore the moldy caulk in the corner. The kids each took a cloth goodie bag and we proceeded outside to beat the crap out of the baseball. It was a natural step from the baseball cake to the baseball pinata - plus what could be easier to make from a round balloon than a round baseball? I love this picture of Jacob hitting it with the bat.
I loved making the pinata with Jacob. He helped with all three layers but the outside layer ended up being a surprise. We did the recommended three layers but when I went to decorate it the night before I got nervous that it would crack at the first hit and only one kid would get a turn. So I added a fourth layer and had to dry it in front of a heater for a couple hours. Then the next day, just a couple hours before the party, it was still not decorated because of the extra drying time. I was running out of time so Zach suggested he'd paint it since he already had the right colors.

I don't know if it was the fourth layer, or the professional grade paint, but that thing was never cracking open. We would have been out there all day, except the string finally came away from the pinata and it landed on the ground with a thud. We all stood there not knowing what to do so I finally picked it up, ripped it open with my hands and tossed it into the air.

That did the trick and no one really cared after that. What I'll do next time is either skip the fourth layer of paper mache or not use such heavy-duty paint. Oh, and definitely secure the string better.

The boys were so tired after the party that they both passed out on the couch after everyone left. And I got to clean up. All in all, I was pretty proud of myself. It wouldn't have my trademark signature if things didn't go wrong. I feel like I've crossed another rite of passage as a mother: The Kid Party.

Day Five: Game On

Welp. The Yanks won last night.

Jacob requested we get Chinese food last night, which is a rare treat, so I said yes because Zach was going to be working late, again. This means there wasn't much dinner cleanup. In fact, I have gotten so lazy in this recent wave of Zach working late that I didn't bother doing any dishes last night and the kitchen is a mess. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, it's almost like I left the kitchen a mess on purpose to disguise the chicken gook (yeah, that's what I'll call it) because I was afraid Zach might actually clean it up.

I needn't have worried. There was never any mention of it. The reason I thought it might happen is because Zach couldn't sit down for most of the game. I kept urging him to and he'd just look at me, a little wild-eyed, and say, "I can't, I have to stand up." Poor thing was so nervous. It was around this point he told me he might actually not go to bed at all. I think it came up because I said something about the rabbit cages and he told me he'd do them after the game. Say what?

Understandably, I thought the kitchen might get cleaned. Like I said, I was dreaming.

Below are the pictures. One I took yesterday when I thought it might be my last photo op. I cheated though, I moved it from the counter in order to get a better shot. I put it right back though, I mean, after I tested its reaction to gravity. Guess what. It didn't budge. I held it completely perpendicular to the ground and the only thing that happened is a little bit of unsolidified juices ran from the center. I'm assuming this is just what's left of the water. or maybe some kind of oil that remains liquid at room temperature?

** Fun fact - It jiggles! Like Jello! Hm, what does that say about what's in Jello?

Here is the picture I took this morning. It's not very good because Zach was just in the other room and I didn't dare draw attention to the counter area by moving things around. Notice the line of delineation on the top, a little to the right. Is it just me, or has it receded a little more?

Look at all the pretty colors! To be fair, I have to mention that this is not all just from the chicken. What I did was I cooked it in mushroom soup. Being a vegetarian, I'm not sure if that is an appropriate thing to do with chicken? I thought it might infuse some yummy taste into the chicken...but what it really seems to have done is add more life to the gook by way of colors and fun texture. Let me ask you this, knowing now that there's mushroom in there, does that answer some questions about the nastiness, or does it just make it that much worse?