You know the ads make it look so cute. Babies make every scene adorable. Preschoolers make every moment lovable. Together they warm hearths and hearts.
So I was in potential heaven this weekend. In the kitchen, baking my favorite chocolate cake recipe for my mom’s birthday, listening to “Wait…Wait…Don’t Tell Me” on the radio. Gorgeous day outside, decent night of sleep…you get the picture.
Except that at each key moment in the broadcast, Peanut pushed a button on some infernal singing toy that blasted crappy kids’ music over the top of a clever and topical NPR rejoinder. And each time I measured and poured, the baby nursing in my sling reached out of his faux sleep to grab a fistful of goop.
The zen that used to be cooking, as most parents can attest, is now the zen of cooking and listening and showing and sharing and cooking and observing and correcting and cleaning and cooking and listening and ignoring and pretending and listening and watching and for god’s sake not blinking and sighing and listening and explaining and spilling and cursing and apologizing and crying and drinking.
Or something like that.
NaptimeWriting 
I understand all too well. Which is why mommy had to get rid of the monstrosity that is the Yo Gabba Gabba Singing Guitar. It was just too much to bear, I tell you.
Great minds…writing a post on this exact thing at the moment! The only saving grace of baking with kids is the sweet, comforting deliciousness at the end of it!
PHEW! You saved the drinking for last.
I’m feeling that last paragraph top to bottom. Just reading it made my energy drain!
Long before we were parents ourselves, my husband and I once bought a really loud toy for our nephew on purpose.
Of course karma paid us back in full, with myriad tweeting, honking, shrieking, singing gifts given to our kids. One of which broke and wouldn’t stop blowing the siren and we actually had to put it in the garage and let it go until the battery wore out (weeks later).
Maybe we should start a Quiet Toy Movement? ;)
And why is it that they always insist on playing with these monstrously loud contraptions when we most need the silence.
And yes, the drink comes last. Mostly because you have run out of other options. ;)
Not to mention tripping over the toys the toddler brings from everywhere and plants neatly under your feet. Oh, and the howling that he wants to help by throwing eggs from the bench onto your timber floor with gaps between the slats like the grand canyon for the egg to slither into. Yeah. Something like that!
My mother warned me when the first baby was born that my time was no longer my own. That I now did everything with a helper. She was warning me that I needed to plan to accomplish less in the same period of time. Ten years later, I am still surprised by how little I accomplish in a day ;)
Cooking can be a dangerous sport here in our kitchen. Those darn alphabet magnets on the tile floor are a deathtrap if you aren’t quick on your feet because you know they never get put back on the fridge.
I stopped cooking for about 3 years. I’ve restarted by doing Guerilla Warfare Cooking, which is basically me Preheating the oven on the sly, sneakily checking the cabinets & fridge for ingredients, moving measuring cups and spoons silently to the counter…then distracting the kids with something in the basement…once they are out of site I toss everything together as quickly as possible (Heaven forbid I get caught by my 3yo peeling a vegetable or cracking eggs…I’ll be reprimanded, stools will be dragged to the counter so she can reach to ‘help’, the process exponentially increases in danger and mess)…toss in the oven and clean up after myself immediately so as to not get caught.
Whew.
Not quite as fun as it used to be.