Category Archives: Family Stories

Chocolate Explosion

Search officially hit the three-pound mark today. Destroy is close behind at 2.9 pounds – he should catch up to his brother in the next day or so. And tomorrow the boys will be one month old. Already!

We’ve had a lot of help getting them here. The nurses at the NICU are amazing. Each day they let us know how our muppets are doing and provide the advice on how best to care for them. We’re learning their little quirks and developing personalities right alongside their nurses.

So to celebrate their one-month birthday, I made the NICU nurses cupcakes. Behold: my baking brilliance.

While I was mixing the bowl of soon-to-be Devil’s Food cupcakes, I remembered a tremendously chocolatey adventure from my childhood. I was in middle school. My brother, Paul, was just about to finish up elementary school. It was summer vacation and Mom was already back at work.

Paul and I decided the only thing missing from a perfect summer’s day was a chilled bowl of chocolate pudding. With the help of the JELL-O instant mix and the blender – this was an easily remedied situation. So we set to work.

What happened next is one of life’s timeless mysteries. My working hypothesis is that the cord of the mixer caught the bottom of the freshly mixed pudding bowl – sending it spinning through the air.

Suddenly I heard Paul yell, “Hit the deck!!!” as he flattened himself behind the island in the kitchen. When he stood back up, the kitchen was brown. Utterly covered in chocolate. He stared at me as I wiped a sightline out of pudding from my face. Pudding slowly dripped from the ceiling onto Paul’s head.

We stared at each other in shock a few moments longer, surveying the explosive damage. “We’re going to need to clean this up before Mom gets home,” Paul observed. I concurred.

Four very long hours later, we were still mopping up chocolate and emptying countless murkey buckets of water. Mom returned home. We heard the garage door open and, without even a hello, Mom shouted, “I smell chocolate.”

Busted.

Years later we were still finding bits of chocolate throughout the kitchen. Truly, it was an impressive spill. Gramma J is now redoing the kitchen. So just remember, when the contractor removes an old appliance and questions the odd pattern of dirt spatter – it’s probably the remnants of a summer’s afternoon experiment with chocolate pudding.

Search

Destroy

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Soggy Bottom Boys

Pee Pee Teepee

My son christened me into the world of moms with boys today. He peed on me. (Oh, I am a mom of constant sorrow…)

I’d heard tales of such things before, laughed at them. There is even an available item out there called a “pee pee teepee – a must have diapering accessory for newborn boys.” (Yes, that pattern is indeed a wiener dog.) Continue reading

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Draft Eligible

We are in the midst of the 2010 MLB Draft. Held via conference call among all 30 clubs, the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft occurs every year in June. After missing the call for the past eight years, Dad has decided to hang ‘em up – passing the torch to his young sons.

Search appears to be taking this responsibility very seriously. We know he will not be called to the show any time in the near future due to his current ineligibility – given his age and recent steroid use. But it’s never too early to start practicing. Continue reading

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On the Way to Blue Jay

My sources say that parents should converse with their children to help them develop. Allegedly, Search and Destroy already recognize my voice from the non-stop babble they heard constantly in the womb. Now, as they need all the extra developmental abilities as we can provide, I deduced that they would benefit from story telling.

When we were young, my brother and I used to look forward to hearing a “Grandma story” every time she came to visit. Grandma (henceforth known as G.G. for Great-Grandma) would forego reading any book at bedtime. Instead, she would sit in the hallway between our two rooms and tell us stories about her past (of course including all friends and relatives affected by the detailed events). Continue reading

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