This might not be a good idea after all

So in our normal tradition when mommy is gone, the kids and I loaded up on friable foods to have for our Fried Food Festival. Our rule is – if it can’t be fried we don’t want to eat it. We even make a special trip to the supermarket for loading up on our friable treasures.

On night two of the Fried Food Festival we were running a little late. I had put the oil on the stove to begin heating while we ran around the corner to help a friend sign his lease for a new flat to rent. That took longer than I thought, so by the time we returned, there was a distinct hot oil smell in the kitchen. No problem, I thought.

I grabbed a pack of chicken nuggets from the freezer, cut off the top and dropped them in to the oil. What resulted was nothing short of impressive and terrifying all at once. The oil was so hot that the totally frozen nuggets were burned beyond recovery in less than 5 seconds, and the shower of anger coming from the pan made it hard to get them out before a distinct funk filled the air.

After a few minutes of angry hot oil display, I turned down the heat and waited for some time before trying something else.

The rest of the event went fine, with no adverse affects. While the kids were laughing hysterically at the angry oil show, I was admittedly pretty scared it might flare out of control. Maybe these Fried Food Festivals are not such a good idea after all.

Like a living cartoon

Well, after a long and glorious break from blogging, I am back. Today something happened that was just too good to pass up on writing about.

My wife is away on a work trip to Germany for the week. That leaves me with Daddy Day Care duties again. I actually enjoy these times for the most part. They give me a chance to spend more time with the kids and maybe even have an excuse to slow down on the other parts of my schedule.

Tonight while playing soccer on the ‘grey terrace’ (flat roof on the other side of our building) with the kids they each took a turn being a living cartoon scene. My son, age 6, started off the fun with a shot he took to the lower legs. I had kicked it in the air liked he asked, and as it neared him he locked his knees to block it from going past him. The only problem was he was leaning slightly back as he did this, so the force of the ball basically knocked him on his hiney. He went down with knees still locked, so he looked a bit like a bowling pin falling over – totally stiff the whole way down. We all laughed.

Then my daughter, age 4, got in on the cartoon-like action. She decided to run and kick the ball as hard as she could. What resulted was a Charlie Brown like moment where she began the kick too soon, just barely missed the ball, sending her leg flying in to the air and her momentum carrying well past the ball, at which point she landed on her hiney. We all laughed again.

Good thing for flexibility when you are young. If that had been me, I would likely still be out their writhing in pain.