Chef W

Chris has been working a lot lately and some of his work is being done in his home office. My job, while he's doing his, is to keep Wilson from interrupting business phone calls. Just from personal experience, this is important - last Spring I was working from home with Wilson. I had to make 150 business calls, but the first man I was speaking to started laughing so hard I could hear him crying. Apparently he could hear Wilson screaming "Mommy, the dog pooped on the floor!" I had to wait and get all calls in during an hour and a half nap time.

The easiest way to get Wilson occupied is to employ him as a "Big Helper". The kid loves to be a helper, which is great. So we cleaned, did the laundry, and I had to find something else to keep Wilson from getting involved in business calls. I decided Wilson was big enough to bake a cake. All I did was open, measure things, turn on the oven, and crack the eggs. Wilson did the stirring and the pouring and his cake turned out pretty good. Until you looked at it. The chef decided to poke his finger in the cake as it cooled and then helped himself to the icing (taste testing perhaps) while it was on the cake. These are things I found out after the icing had already set. Wilson took another look at his cake and the "creative touches" he added. He said "It's not pretty." So I imparted the only cooking advice I could to my son - there are only two things you should never be without in the kitchen, cajun seasoning and powdered sugar. Powdered sugar - the remedy for ugly cakes everywhere. (Cajun seasoning is what you use if you accidently burn something. You throw cajun spice on the burned meal and tell everyone it is "blackened".) So he sprinkled powdered sugar on his cake, hiding his earlier alterations and no one could tell the difference.

After the cake Wilson played in the kitchen with his playdough activity center. This activity center was purchased as a gift for Wilson by his Uncle Nate and his Aunt Christy who had no children at the time of the exchange. In a year I will repay the favor and get Adison a playdough center - and they can experience the joy of picking dried playdough out of their carpets and off of their walls. I put the playdough center in the kitchen where I assumed it would be safe on the tiled floor. I went to put up the laundry and a few minutes later I was joined by our two dogs, both had green stuff around their mouths and, as I discovered on further examination, in their teeth. In the kitchen Wilson had decided that since he made a cake he should go ahead and make a green playdough spaghetti dinner. He fed it to the dogs. Apparently it was delicious. So I did some mad scrambling and discovered playdough isn't toxic for dogs, although I can tell you now from experience that playdough is an excellent remedy for canine constipation, if you ever have to find a way to get your dog to "go".