Please Don’t Eat The Daisies

The girls had a sleepover Monday night with a friend, and it was generally tame. They ate pizza, they giggled, they played video games, they wrote in a best friends’  journal, and they went to sleep. The night passed without incident and then morning arrived, birds chirped, coffee brewed, and the girls decided it would be a good idea to heat up last night’s pizza for breakfast. While I was on the phone in the other room.

Disaster? Of course. But not as you’d expect. Because the disaster didn’t happen when I was on the phone. Not a single mishap was performed while I was chatting, except that one of the slices of pizza was under-heated. One was perfectly edible, and one was still frozen. So I told my older daughter, Boo, to put it back in the toaster oven to reheat it. After all, they had reheated the first slice with no mishaps, so they’d just do the same with slice #2. Right?

Of course not. Because slice #2 had already been put on a plastic plate. So Boo put the pizza AND THE PLATE into the toaster oven. This escaped my notice despite the fact that I was IN THE ROOM at the time. If I was outside gardening, or upstairs talking to my contractor, or still on the phone in another room I could beat myself up for being a terribly inattentive mother. But I was Right There. I had my back turned to Boo, but was actually in the room. Which is why when she said, three minutes later, “Can I get my pizza now?” I walked over to the toaster oven and, reaching for the handle, glanced through the window. Which is when I saw pizza, and something that was definitely NOT pizza, in the oven.

“Did you put the PLASTIC PLATE in the oven??!!!” I asked, opening the oven door and seeing that, indeed, there was a totally melted plastic plate in the toaster, oozing between the grates like an orange blob of blown glass. I might have thought it was actually pretty if I hadn’t been so worried about inhaling potential toxicity.

Boo’s reply, “You didn’t tell me NOT TO . . . ”

My response to all the children in the room: “Run. Away. Now.” Which they did. Manhattan subway cockroaches exposed to a flood light do not flee faster than those three children did. They were GONE. Which was good, as I didn’t want them inhaling plastic fumes. I also didn’t want to whack Boo in the head with the now ruined toaster oven.

The problem was that I was less inclined to mete out punishment than to burst into laughter at my child’s latest artless destruction. And all because of that one phrase, ‘You didn’t tell me NOT TO . . . ”

When Boo was around three I read a book of essays by Jean Kerr entitled Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. If you’re a mom and you haven’t read it, you should. She was fabulous. The title story takes place the day of a dinner party that she is going to throw that evening. She has been spending the whole week getting everything ready for entertaining a variety of guests at her home, and everything is being set up. She develops a litany of things that her two young boys are not to do, and they are the standard admonishments that every mother recognizes–don’t mess up the table, don’t torture the cat, don’t drag mud in on the carpet. The dinner party guests are about to arrive and she comes out of the kitchen to find that the daisies in the floral centerpieces have been completely decapitated. Of course she calls in her two boys to ask what has happened here, and they tell her, “You didn’t tell us not to eat the daisies!”

This has been the story of my life with Boo. “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t eat a plastic lizard.” “You didn’t tell me I should throw up in the toilet rather than in the sink.” “You didn’t tell me that CDs and DVDs scratch easily.” “You didn’t tell me the cat had thrown up right there where I stepped.” “You didn’t tell me I should take off my shoes after walking in the mud.” “You didn’t tell me the stove was hot.” “You didn’t tell me not to feed those cheetos to the cat.” The amount of artless destruction and mess that my child has effected in her eight short years of life on this planet have led us to occasionally refer to her as Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. She is absolutely a benign and natural destructive force. And so, yesterday on Facebook, I posted this:

Boo decided to re-heat some frozen pizza for herself, for breakfast, in the toaster oven, without informing or asking me. She just put it on a plate and put it on in there. The plate? Was plastic. Now I need to buy a new toaster oven, and Boo retains her nickname: Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. Is it too early to start drinking?

Now, some might expect the usual comments to be split between judging that  my daughter shows a profound lack of common sense: who wouldn’t know that plastic would melt in a toaster oven? and claiming that her act highlights my failure as a mother: did you ever TEACH her that plastic melts under high heat? Fortunately, none of my friends said any of that, which just goes to prove that I have amazing, forward thinking, fun, and loving friends. These people are, quite honestly, the very best allies my daughter will ever have.

One of my newest friends wrote: “She just purified your family right into a renewed toaster oven. Nicely done Shiva!” I love that my friends don’t judge me even for my inaccurate knowledge of foreign gods.

A fellow school mom wrote:  “At least there was an attempt on her part to be independent and self reliant. :) Sorry about the death of your toaster oven. :-(” And this is the blessing of friends who have older kids. They can always put a positive spin on things.

One of my favorite neighbors wrote: “That is a great story!! You now have a memory that will be priceless!!” And you know what, here it is, on this blog, memorialized forever!

Another dear school friend, and fellow blogger, wrote: “What a waste of pizza!!! haha **hugs Boo**” After I read that, of course, I had to convey the hug. Boo was happy to see her mom smiling and laughing about the whole thing.

One of my funniest college friends and I have a running joke that, even though he has no children, he is going to write a parenting book. I informed him that he will have to amend his book title to “Don’t stick a fork . . . OR ANYTHING PLASTIC . . . in the toaster.” He replied, “Well, I was going to put that under “Other Helpful Parenting Tips,” but in light of this morning, you’re right.” It’s amazing when a potentially dangerous episode with a child can be transformed into a writing workshop-like title discussion.

One of my few remaining before-the-children-came-along university friends, who has helped me pull myself out of many, many bad!Mommy moments commented: “Haven’t we all done something similar? Foil in the microwave? Glass baking dish under the broiler? or is it just me?”  This made me realize that I was wasting a perfectly good teaching moment being upset about a toaster. I decided the best way to handle the situation was to turn it into a learning experience and realized it was better she made this error under the mostly-watchful eye of her mother rather than alone in a dorm when she’s 19. It led me to talk to the girls about all sorts of heating mistakes–don’t put a glass dish under a broiler (I even showed Boo and Critter what the broiler WAS!); don’t put aluminum foil, or any metal, in the microwave; don’t put plastic in the oven, on the bottom rack of the dishwasher, or on the grill. I even taught them the difference between silicone and plastic! And what was more, we had fun talking about all the mistakes I made as a young wife trying to cook in a very tiny, cramped, ill-equipped kitchen.

Boo’s dear teacher from preschool play and music classes, who we greatly miss seeing, asserted: “I’m sure [Boo] only meant this to be an important science experiment performed solo for maximum educational value! Hang in there. [Her duaghter] once tried a slice of cheese in the DVD player…imagine those results!” She made me realize that kids are going to sometimes even do things not out of artless ignorance but out of curiosity (this will most likely be more true of Critter than it will ever be of Beth) and that when that happens I will have to be understanding, resourceful, and forgiving as well.

A good childhood friend of my husband’s explained: “At least she learned a valuable lesson early-and some extra points for initiative. Boo-just make mom a mushy card and all will be well!” As it turns out, he is very wise, because all is well. It even has a happy ending! After the toaster  oven cooled off and the plastic re-congealed, with the help of our contractor-friend who was at our house yesterday, the toaster oven was SAVED! And the kingdom rejoiced! I did not have to take the money for a new toaster oven out of Boo’s allowance!

And ultimately, in the light of a new day, I can even more fully assert that yesterday my friends were absolutely right–what yesterday was frustrating and potentially horrifying is now humorous anecdote of the Jean Kerr/Erma Bombeck school. What I want to know is how Jean and Erma managed to find the humor in these situations without a world of friends at their fingertips on Facebook. Maybe times were simpler then. Maybe there were less distractions. Maybe interactions weren’t as frequent or as necessary. But I’m grateful I live in the time I do, because though it seems that the frustration of mothers at the insanity of their children has not changed, my electronic world makes it a lot easier to handle it all.