In the Kitchen With Mattie

I thought it might be fun to list some of my favorite useful things in my kitchen, but the list will evolve over time. Gadgets seem to go through cycles with me….for weeks at a time I will utilize one of them and then suddenly another will become the most used. There is no ryhme or reason to it but I think most people are the same, at least if they love to cook they are. Right now I seem to be obsessed with that new Ninja Master Prep Deluxe. I picked mine up at Sams a week ago and have probably used it at least a dozen times or more already. I’ve made vegetable cream cheese, potato pancakes, herb butter and chopped endless amounts of onions, celery and carrots. Seriously, I love this little gadget, it has become my new best friend in the kitchen and I find myself trying to think of even more things to do with it.

I know if my boys were still home they would have had some unusual uses for it already! They were VERY rambunctious and the middle one had a fear of nothing, whenever something would happen around the house it got so everyone would yell “Matt did it” and 99% of the time he did. My family used to say that if I raised him to adulthood and both he and I made it through I would be gauranteed cannonization by the church…….thinking back I think they might have been right although I don’t see a halo above me. As I said we have three sons, Chris is the oldest, he was always quiet and sort of timid growing up, he always seemed to question things around him but was a little fearful of checking out anything. Matt is in the middle, he was born without fear of any kind, I knew we were in trouble the minute I saw him after he was born. I remember turning to my husband and saying “I think we’re in for it now, look at those eyes on him”.  Our youngest is Mike, I have never seen a 2 year old with a definite idea of what he would wear…..he was born with a sense of style and still has it to this day, his older brothers were happy with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and being boys they didn’t even care if you washed them…….not Mike, he picked out his own stuff since the time he was two, if he didn’t like something it would soon disappear, and his favorites had to always be ready for him or he wouldn’t go out. He preferred totally co-ordinated outfits, no jeans and T’s for him, heaven forbid. Have you ever seen a two or three year old who insisted that his clothes be ironed? If it had a wrinkle in it, it wasn’t going on his little body. I must admit though, it was nice to have at least one boy who took care with the way he looked…….it took his brothers until their teen years to really care……about the time they discovered girls.

One little escapade stands out in my mind, I had just worked an 18 hour shift, work was super busy and I was exhausted. I got home at 6 am and hubby got up to get ready for work and get the boys ready for school, the school bus picked them up on the corner. I waited until they were outside and collapsed into my bed without even removing my makeup. I felt myself start to go into a deep sleep when I suddenly heard all these sirens, I got up and looked out the window at the bus stop and the kids were already gone, back to bed I fell and just collapsed. A few minutes went by and there was a really loud pounding on the door, I figured it was a salesman or something so I chose to ignore it, the pounding got louder and then was also going on on the back door too. I dragged myself out of bed again and went to the front door. There in all their glory stood a batallion of firemen, axes in hand and really mad looks on their faces. I opened the door with the makeup smeared all over my face and they took one look at me and backed up, I guess I was a pretty sight they were’nt ready for. They asked “Do you have 2 sons named Chris and Matt” I said yes they are my sons but they are in school, I still wasn’t connecting all those firetrucks with my little angels. It seems our corner had an old fire alarm box that had not been disconnected yet and while they waited for the bus Chris had said to Matt, “I wonder what happens if you pull that lever” Matt being Matt and having no fear decided to find out……so he pulled it. Nothing happened so he proceeded to pull it again……..still nothing so he pulled it again….and again…….and again…in all a total of 10 times, with each ring calling for another truck to help fight this enormous fire that must be happening. When the trucks showed up and the boys  saw them and realized what they had done they went and hid under our house. They came out after the firemen had left and they mustered up enough courage to face the rath of Mom. Chris was in tears……..Matt just said “hey mom, did you know that those old boxes on the corner really work” He couldn’t understand why my face was so twisted and when I told him he was grounded until he was 40 his only reply was “Does that mean I get no food?” The firemen came back later that day to talk to them about the dangers of calling out the trucks when there isn’t an actual fire happening and we never had another truck incident. I should mention that in their defense they had never seen a fire alarm before we moved south. Life with my boys was never dull, that’s for sure. I remember hearing one of the firemen as they walked down off the porch saying to one of his guys “Those poor kids, did you see that mother……she must hang out in bars all night….that’s one rough looking woman” Ahhhhh yes, the joys of motherhood with 3 rambunctious boys.

Mattie