Tomatoes

Alex has become a little chef, and loves to “cook! cook!” whenever Mommy is doing so. I pull out the step stool and bring it up to the counter so he can see what is going on and help — stir a pot with lots of supervision, dump ingredients into the mixer or pot, sprinkle shredded cheese, etc. It’s a lot of fun, not too much more of a mess since I am a sloppy cook to begin with, and I feel like he is learning to be self sufficient in the kitchen, eventually.

Yesterday, though, was a disaster. The little man looooves to eat grape tomatoes. We had finished our mixing and he saw the container of tomatoes on the counter and wanted some. I figured that was a healthy pre-dinner snack, so opened the container and let him gnosh. He happily ate quite a few, and then discovered they are more fun to squish. I admit I wasn’t paying close attention as I finished cooking, and out of the corner of my eye it looked like he was still just eating. Finally, I go over to look more closely and he has squished about half of the container — tomato guts on the pantry door (3 feet away), all over the soffet above the counters and the top cabinets (about 3 feet upwards) and, of course, all over his clothes and the floor. Each tomato carcass was neatly thrown into the disposal-side of the sink, as he has seen Mommy do a gazillion times.

We made Alex clean up the mess before cleaning him up and sitting down to dinner. (And Mike, gallantly, took over clean up duty, including hand washing 101 and mopping the entire kitchen floor after dinner). Note to self — watch tomato consumption very, very carefully!