What I did on my summer vacation....

My loveable load has lessened, so much so that at this very moment I only have one.

(poor kid)

He comes to me after the academic potion of his day and believe me when I say "poor kid".

Not much could be worse for a punk rotten kid than to have to play nice with a cray-cray old woman who loves to hear herself babble.

In an effort to keep ourselves busy and get something accomplished we started off making mini meatloaves.

I sent the loveable to the big kitchen to fetch some eggs.

This kid's ADHD is the WORST I've ever encountered so I often find myself breaking down chores and being annoyingly through in my requests..

"Please go to the large kitchen and get a half dozen eggs. Don't let the eggs fall on the floor. Could you take a bowl, so you don't have to try and carry all 6 in your hands. Please don't get lost in the freezer. And don't touch anything else in there. Walk, don't run in the kitchen, Miss Sue doesn't like it when we run in her kitchen"

He stops twirling in circles and looks at me.

I point toward the bowls, he picks up three different sizes, one at a time and says "this one?"

"what about this one"

"this one or this one"

"Pick a bowl kid, any bowl and go get the eggs" I advise.

He comes back with an extra egg and it turns out to be a good thing when he begins to juggle three and drops one on the counter.

"Good thing you had an extra one" I say "don't do that at home, luck will have you having just enough and then you won't be able to make your recipe"

While we gather ingredients to make the meat loaf mixture, he takes a momentary "time out".

With a large spoon he "stirs" inside the huge metal bowl, which is empty.

His actions make quite a racket, but not as much as when the bowl spins off the counter and hits the floor.

(the sound rattles the metal fillings in my teeth)

"Wow" I say "lucky for you that bowl is empty".

He smiles and nods his head.

He dances back and forth, hops on one foot, then the other as we put the seasonings and the meat in a pile in the middle of the big bowl.

Like a race horse ready to run he leans and gestures his body forward, it's evident he can hardly wait to dig his gloved hands into the bowl to combine the mixture.

"Be careful" I say "go slow" I caution.

He dives in, both hands, up to his elbows.

A blob of the meat flies out of the bowl and hits the ground.

Shit, I think.... you need to frickin S-L-OOOOOOOOOOOO-W it down kid, slow down, slow down.

"Stand still" I say as I go near his feet to gather the ground beef off the floor.

He backs up from the bowl to give me room.

He steps on my pinky finger.

His size 13 shoe makes an impression.

I wonder if my nail will turn black and fall off..?

A sticky clump of meat mixture falls from his extended hands.

It falls in my hair.

"I'm sorry" he says, then as I stand up he reaches to get it out.

"I'm good" I say, backing away from his meat covered gloves.

I pulled out as much of the sticky burger as I can and back to work we go.

I leave him alone for a minute to get a cloth from the back room.

When I round the corner entering the room I see him lifting up a volley ball sized hunk of meatloaf mixture high above his head. He was just about ready to toss that into the air when I yelled for him to stop. He jumped so hard he knocked over the plastic measuring cup.

It bounced off the floor and hit my shin.

The cup doesn't break... I'm not too sure about my shin bone.

"YOU OKAY?" the lovable asks.

"I'm (FLIPPIN AZZ) fine, I'm good, put the meat back in the bowl" I respond.

While I look at the recipe for a baking time he shapes the meat into baseball sized mounds.

I want to scream "STOP PLAYING WITH YOUR MEAT"...

but I don't because I've done that before and not had the best reaction.

We end up having a lot of class time left when I make the executive (saving both our azzs') decision to finish the meat loaf (MYSELF) in the morning.

What to do what to do what to do.

"Ever make cupcakes?" I ask.

I send him, along with 17 "rules" to gather 6 more eggs from the big kitchen.

He brings 7, just in case.

We use a box mix, I like to teach them how to read the directions figuring that this is what they will most likely bake at home.

I tell him to always read left to right..following the band across the top of the cake mix box showing the ingredients needed and how much of each.

He chooses to use brute force (instead of the scissors sitting next to him) to open the plastic bag containing the dry mix.

The bag pulls apart sideways and half the mix poufs into the air and into both our faces.

As I wipe up the mess I'm not paying attention when he says "One cup of oil"....

Just as he's about to pour it in it hits me that that doesn't sound right.

"Wait a minute" I yell...

Oil sloshes sideways and over the edge of the cup's rim when he jerks his hand back to "STOP" like I order.

The oil hits the counter and threatens to go over the edge onto the floor.

I mop up the oil watching closely while he finishes with the next few additions.

"Have you ever used a hand mixer?" I ask him.

I demonstrate even though he tells me he has.

"If you lift these beaters up out of this bowl and any liquid flies anywhere it shouldn't" I warn him..."you WILL be washing walls and where ever else it hits...understand?"

He promises he does.

And for a second or two he remembers, then he does exactly what I told him not to do.

The beaters lift and turn with his body when he tries to say something to me.

I catch most of the flying batter.

Only not with my hands.

He comes at me with the oil covered cloth and I duck and weave and tell him "thank you very much, but I'll clean my own face".

He doesn't seem dissapointed when I tell him that we have to wait until tomorrow to frost our cupcakes.

I'm pooped.

And dirty and sticky.

And done with this day.

Later a co-worker would gesture that I had something on my face. I wiped left. He nodded, then gestured right. I wiped right, he nodded again. "Under your eye" he said "and on your eyebrow". I wiped both spots.

"There's something really gross in your hair" he said, then added "only one kid today...almost like a mini vacation huh?"

"Yeah, something like that" I reply.

Photo of messy kitchen "borrowed" from foodieinberlin's blog

****** PS

I would like to thank each and every one of you who read this blog. I want to thank those who comment, your thoughts and kind words delight me more than words can say. I always think I should "comment" back... but I don't know if you circle back and look to see if I did...??? When I make a comment on a blog I never go back and see if the author replied... so I don't know if they did... I want you to know that I read each and every comment and smile every time I do... If you comment, please let me know if you circle back or not...? Either way, I appreciate you and I owe you big time for taking the time to comment... saves me some ching on a therapist..kwim?