My Kitchen Remodel

For Christmas, my daughter fell in love with an adorable play kitchen she received from her Ninas (Godmothers). She even loved the presentation of the gift on Christmas Eve as it was the last gift to open and the largest box in the room! This little kitchenette has a fantastic tale to tell, from its original purchase to its resting place among Neel Royalty for the next several years…

On Thanksgiving Day 2012, Wal-Mart’s Black Friday bargains began at 800P. My daughter’s In-Love-With-Shopping-Nina, Carlene, was the one just crazy enough to brave the masses for the greatest deals of the season. There were 8 adults babysitting the giant shrink-wrapped boxes until the store gave the signal that Black Friday had officially started. However, only 7 kitchens were available. Her Nina sat near those boxes like Horton Hatches the Egg. When the time came, she pounced on the box she had been eyeballing for the last hour. A man placed a hand on the box in his feeble attempt to claim it, and she nearly bit it off with a growl. Her 4 ft 9 in self hobbled the 2x3 ft box and the rest of her purchase to checkout all by herself. When she got to the parking lot, the box wouldn’t hobble so great. Luckily, a Wal-Mart employee offered his services of which she reluctantly accepted, but not until she told him how she didn’t trust anyone on this day with her hard earned purchase. Carlene knew what she wanted and she knew how much my daughter would love it. Just like Horton, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, and an elephant's faithful, one hundred percent!" it’s nice for my daughter to have someone in her corner that looks out for her royal interests.

You all know when Christmas is, and here we are in the last week of January. If you have children, you understand the importance of making room, purging, if you will, your children’s toy room and closets. These were all necessary steps before I crammed this unit in her bedroom somewhere. For the last week or so, I have been diligently making way for their Christmas loot. Wednesday was when I was able to assemble the Little Tikes Gourmet Prep ‘n Serve Kitchen.

Not sure how long this would take, and knowing full well I will get more done with my children happily occupied, I loaded up the DVD player, filled a giant bowl of Goldfish for them and handed her a 24 oz water bottle to minimize my disturbances. I just bought myself 80 minutes! I empty the box of all its contents, look for the instructions and head to the garage for all the necessary tools. 

Following the step by step instructions, I think to myself that this is relatively easy and I’ll be done before the kids’ movie is up! As I assemble the big components, they need to be screwed together. There are indentations where the screws belong, but no holes. That is why the instructions tell me I may need a hammer to maybe puncture a hole where I need to screw the pieces together. The tiny plastic bag has a hundred screws in it. How many holes am I maybe gonna have to make?? Grrr. So I’m hammering away which draws the attention of my little fan club. As patiently as an impatient mother can be, I tell them to get back to their movie. Hammering continues and my son, aka Curious George, comes back and is so eager to use the hammer, I think he’s gonna burst. He won’t leave me be completely, so he starts to play with all the kitchenette accessories. He threw the fake orange over the banister. We could hear it bouncing off the hardwood below. I send him down there to retrieve it, with strict orders NOT to come back until it’s found. That bought me like, I dunno, 45 seconds? He comes back upstairs and says it’s got to be in his room (even though we both saw him throw it). 

The hammering resumes. The boy returns yet again. This time he’s playing with the Philips. The very thought of those possibilities strikes fear into my deepest darkest thoughts. I swipe it from him and now he’s the one upset. I’ve got one eye on his shenanigans and the other on my hammer. Naturally, I lost focus on the task at hand and smash my thumb. I let out a yelp and the two of them come to see what happened. When I explained to them the dangers of working with tools because this exact thing is what can happen, the boy points a finger at me and laughs the laugh of Nelson from The Simpsons, “Heh-HEH!” and walks away. I did my best Yosemite Sam impression, shaking my head, mumbling inaudible profanities under my breath. 

Back to the hammer. This time around piques my daughter’s curiosity. She is quite observant and stands next to me quietly sucking her thumb. “Mom, your boobies wiggle when you hammer.” She walks back to the toy room. *sigh*

I finally manage to get all the big pieces together and screwed in place. The next step is sticker placement. I grab the hammer, screwdriver and extra screws and put them under my legs so he can’t get to them. The stickers go all over the kitchen so I’m up and down and sideways trying to get them placed just right. During that process, the boy sneaks away my hammer. I yell at him to give it back because he’s gonna hurt himself. He does not like being told what to do, but he knows how serious I am. That’s when he decided to chuck it at me. The hammer. Thankfully he’s not a good arm, so it falls short and lands on my big toe. My initial reaction was to scoop it up and throw it back at him. He immediately fell asleep and I was able to finish my project without incident.

But that last part really didn’t happen. I couldn’t hurt my kid like that and admit it in a public forum, silly! After I responsibly parented that situation with love and a hug, I finally completed the kitchen assembly! WooHoo! 

I placed it in my Princess’ room, right next to her Disney Princess vanity. We put all the utensils, pots, pans and food in their respective spots and the kids went to town with the thing! It was a great sight.

She sat down at her vanity and asked if she could put make-up on before she prepares dinner. She had asked Santa for her very own makeup and he complied. This was the first time I was allowing my 4 yr old to apply the makeup all by herself. I left the room to clean up the tools and leftover parts & wrappers. When I came back to her room, this is what I found. 

My sparkling beauty was so proud of herself, but she couldn’t see very well as she had mistakenly applied pixie dust into her eyeball. I whisked her off to the bathroom to wash her face. In our absence, the boy took her place at the vanity. I was so consumed with her, that I didn’t take notice of the impending doom. We returned to find that he had demolished her eye shadow compact. My daughter doesn’t know what he did, not yet anyway, and I dread the moment when she realizes what transpired while we were at the sink. While I was cleaning up all the dust and powder from the vanity, I looked at the boy. I saw his hands, then his shirt. Holding my breath, my eyes slowly made their way up to his face, only to find a forehead of sparkly mess. I refrained from laughter and asked him what he did. That’s when my 2 yr old son shouted, “I’m a Princess, too!” 

 

I went way past my 80 minute movie time frame. After cleaning everyone and everything up, it was nearly 800P and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet! Where did the time go?! There was no way I was cooking in my real kitchen. I threw them in their carseats and made our way to In N Out because we all deserved to be rewarded for the evening we just had. The boy fell asleep in the drive thru line and he didn’t wake up ‘til the morning. WooHoo! But don’t worry…I didn’t leave him in the car overnight.

I wouldn’t trade a swollen thumb and a limp for anything as long as my kids are happy and keep making me laugh uncontrollably. I may suffer from a bruised ego because my wiggly boobies entertain my daughter and my son never listens to me, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… it’s all worth it. The sleepless nights, adult-less days, barking orders, cleaning up messes, days without a shower… I would do it all again in a heartbeat because my pint-size family makes me the happiest I’ve ever been.

Disclaimer: If you happened upon this blog and don’t know me from Adam, it’s important to mention that I would never harm my children with hardware. I’m a great Mom with a sarcastic tone who loves a little witty banter. No need to get Children & Family Services involved here. Okay? Thanks.