I’ve had a few near-death experiences in my life, the first of which happened when I was born.  The second happened when I was just about Ryan’s age.  As the story has been recounted on a number of occasions, my mother had left me to play in the kitchen with my ride-on tractor while she worked on something.  She returned moments later to find that I’d taken everything in the refrigerator and spilled it on the floor.  Not to leave a job unfinished, I took several ingredients and covered our dog with the mess.

Every time I hear that story, I laugh at the mental image of such destruction and I thought, until today, that it must’ve been some mess for my parents to remember all those years later.

So I tell you all that to share this.  I love chocolate, always have.  Tonight I took it upon myself to show a little independence and bake some cookies.  Of course, my fearless sous-chef was ready and willing to volunteer to help.  As I began mixing all the ingredients together, the FedEx delivery man came with a package Jenn had ordered.  No problem.  I had everything under control.  I calmly set Ryan with a spoon and an empty bowl and told him to stir the bowl and get it ready for the cookie dough.  He seemed to understand.  I went and had a nice chat with our overworked FedEx an who complained about how he had to work overtime delivering packages and he expected to work until around 10 tonight.  After signing and chatting for about 45 seconds, I returned to my station.  What I found was a floury mess of great proportions.  The dog had been caked with it and managed to shake most of it off while Ryan looked as if he’d become a ghost.  I wanted desperately to get a picture at that point  but time wouldn’t allow it.  Ryan was determined to run through the house and Maddie, being the loyal canine vacuum that she is, had already begun the cleanup process.  I snapped these pictures as soon as I had the situation under control and, much like wartime photographers, I caught the essence of the damage.  In the cookie season, I think I might leave this job in the more capable hands of Jenn.