Stoves and Sleep Deprivation Don't Mix

I should have learned this lesson before. You see, when M was less than two weeks old, I put some bottles to boil on the stove so they would get sterilized. Then I promptly forgot about them in my exhausted, hazy state of mind. Only the acrid smell of melted plastic reminded me-- I found all three bottles and the nipples gooped onto the bottom of the pot, since all the water had evaporated hours before. Oops. (It was my mother's pot I ruined, too.)

With the next two babies I managed to avoid any kind of stove top catastrophes, but I am making up for it this time. Not too long ago I decided to make hot chocolate for a FHE snack for the kids. So I put a pot of milk on the stove to warm and returned to refereeing the very noisy, almost-getting-violent game of Hungry Hippos that was our family activity. Hmmm. Perhaps I should clean my burners more frequently because when I finally remembered that I was trying to cook something, I found foot-high flames leaping up around the saucepan. Fortunately, the fact that I had not done the dishes in a couple of days was also my lifesaver, since that meant that a large skillet lid was still sitting next to the stove, which some instinct bade me grab and drop on the flames. That seemed to solve the problem, though even with the adrenaline rush a flaming kitchen provided, I was too tired to actually lift up the lid and clean up the mess until the next day.

Today was nearly as bad. I guess I was just feeling too on top of things, and I needed a reminder that I still am subsisting on less-than-ideal sleep. Mac n cheese was our gourmet lunch today, only I forgot to actually turn the burner off at all. Thirty minutes later I went to pull my baked fish out of the oven, tossed the hot pad on top of the still scorching burner, and walked away.

Nothing like smoke to clear the sinuses.