I Swear, I Actually Do Watch My Children

I had a good thing going over the summer. The boys would wake up somewhere around 8 and go downstairs and play or watch TV. Ellie slept until 9 every day so I would occasionally sleep really late or else wake up when the boys did, but then hang out and be lazy playing on my ipod or reading a book for awhile until Ellie got up. For the most part the boys were content to wait to have breakfast until after Ellie woke up and then we all ate together. But sometimes they got hungry earlier and then they would make themselves breakfast - sidenote: moving the milk to the bottom of the fridge so the oldest two could reach it and make their own cereal and oatmeal was hands down the smartest thing I've ever done.

Anyways, one morning I could hear Dayton and Tucker in the kitchen. I was awake, but hadn't gone downstairs yet. Tucker was asking Dayton to make him some oatmeal, per the usual. Apparently Dayton was feeling particularly overburdened with the heavy responsibility of pushing a button on the microwave so after he put the water in he told Tucker to do the rest himself. I was sort of halfway aware of this conversation, but not really. Fast forward maybe ten minutes or so....I start hearing little popping noises, but I remember thinking that they were playing with some toy downstairs or something. Then a few minutes after that I smell a burning smell. I finally put that together with the conversation earlier and the popping and realize that Tucker had just pushed a ton of buttons on the microwave until it started and then probably gone back downstairs and forgotten about it. When I ran down to the kitchen this is what I found:

Nice, right? I'm thinking I'm lucky nothing caught on fire. The bowl was completely trashed - it was one of those kinds that aren't supposed to be microwaved at all, nevermind 10 minutes or more. The 'oatmeal' was completely rock hard. The microwave had a burnt smell for a couple of weeks afterward. But that's what I get for being lazy.