A word of unsolicited advice

You didn't ask for advice, but here it is anyway.  DO NOT teach your child how to bring a chair to the counter to "help you" until they are old enough to understand how to listen.

Today is a perfect example.  I was trying to get supper ready, stir fry- chicken for the boys- veggie for me.  I'm slicing up the chicken when in comes said little boy with his chair rapidly descending on me, and wacking me in the back of the knees.  Then he wants to touch the chicken, while my sharp knife is going through.  Said child almost gets his finger cut off.  Fingers keep getting in my way, and pieces of chicken get thrown on the floor.  AND not by me.  I take the child off the chair, he proceeds to have a meltdown, and clears everything on the kitchen table with one arm.  Now that's all on the floor.  As I go to take said child away, and clean up on the mess, he escapes and as I'm on my knees, I see he's already up on the chair, at the counter again, and this time he's got the knife in his hands.  Big scary knife, which when I shout for him to put down, he throws at me. 

And the chicken that I had started to stir fry on the stove is now burning because I haven't been able to watch it.  Wonder why.  Ok, so I turn it down, try to distract said child with TV.  It works for 2 min, then he's back, on the chair at the counter wanting to help me slice veggies.  Again, fingers in the way.  Instead of cutting his finger, I cut my own battling to keep him away.  He finally agrees to move over 1 cm, and I continue cutting.  He helps himself to the bag of mushrooms, spills them on the floor, and proceeds to take a bite out of about 6 of them.  Along the way he spits the mushrooms out on the floor.  As I try to clean this up, my pot of rice boils over.  I hurry to clean it up, grab the first cloth nearby before Dylan shows up, and wipe the glass top burner.  I wipe it with a cheap loonie store pot holder, that leaves orange burnt remnants on the glass top.  Great.

I'm all frazzled so I throw the veggies in with the chicken, not thinking, there goes my ability to make a veggie stir fry.  Guess i'm eating something else.  Enough is enough, so I put up the gate to bar said child from the kitchen.  Putting the gate up quickly is a tug of war.  He doesn't want it up, and I do, so it's a battle.  In trying to get it up, I nick the new paint.  Lovely.  He's now kept out of the kitchen, but is really mad, so he proceeds to throw anything he can find.  a bowl of crackers from an earlier snack, my sunglasses go tumbling down the stairs over the gate.... things are flying everywhere because he's mad he's barred from the kitchen, and he wants my attention. 

The shouting continues from the living room, and I return to the kitchen to see what's happening.  My onions ended up going in too early in the stir fry and they are limp and gross.  I throw the little bit of mushrooms that made it through the throwing, eating and spitting out in to the stir fry.  Said child is screaming and mad in the living room.  Husband walks through the door, comes up, sits down to eat.  Comments that the mushrooms could have been cooked more.  He's just lucky that he's got dinner.  And a wife with lots of patience.

So, may I just say, it's lovely to have children help out in the kitchen, BUT, a word of unsolicited advice, don't do it before your child can handle it.  The sanity of the mother may be at stake.  :D

Tomorrow is another day.
No photo on this post... can you guess why?