Written by Rachael Coe
We love to read books in our home and one of my children’s favorite books is, “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. This book is funny because, as the pig eats his pancake, he also wants syrup. Naturally! After he has his syrup, he gets sticky so then he decides that he needs a bath. In the bath, he then decided that he needed bubbles, and… well…. you get the picture. My children love to laugh when I read this book and I always thought it was a great book until…. a particular Tuesday in March came along. It was a day when we had a missionary family scheduled for lunch at our house.
My menu was planned for the day and I really thought I was doing quite well. I wanted everything to be planned well and organized ahead of time, in the same way our Pastor’s wife would do it. Our Pastor and his wife were in Africa during this time and my husband, the assistant pastor, was trying his best to fill Pastor’s shoes.
As I was straightening up the house for company, I heard a noise of delight coming from my kitchen. I had given my children and the one little girl that I babysit, a snack. I didn’t think anything of this noise at the time, but a minute later, I heard a “sticky” noise and more squeals of delight. Up to this point I wasn’t too worried but decided to check out the noise anyway.
As I walked into the kitchen, there was this overwhelming, sweet smell and my children were in the middle of a large, brown puddle on the floor! My 19 month old son had found a gallon jug of syrup and decided to pour it on the floor and on his sister, along with the other little girl that I was babysitting! The other two children thought this was a great idea so they were all happily playing in this sticky mess of syrup. Normally, I would have just cleaned up the mess and instructed them that this was not wise; however, the family that we were entertaining was scheduled to arrive in 30 minutes and I was facing a demolition scene that would have sent IHOP into damage control! With my company arriving in minutes, (and they always arrive 15 minutes early!), I made a frantic call to my husband to do his best to delay them. I flew into overdrive and stripped all three children from their sticky clothes and threw them in the bathtub. Gracie, my 3 year old, cheerfully said, “Look, mommy, I’m like the pig in our book… but you forgot the pancakes.”
After a quick scrub down, new clothes, and my floor mopped for the 2nd time that day - we were ready for guests. There was still a sickening, overwhelming sweet smell in our house and we could have put a sign outside that said, “Welcome to the International House of Pancakes” and I think it would have been okay.
I have learned a lesson from this escapade…
From now on, I have decided to put my children in play pens whenever it looks like someone might be stopping by for dinner and I have hidden the book “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. They still have the book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” and “If You Give A Moose A Muffin” but I assure you that I will be carefully screening those. “If You Take a Mouse to School” might be great for Gracie to reenact when
she goes to kindergarten.
Oh, and to top it all off…. we decided to have pancakes for dinner that night!
4 comments:
Oh my! How funny. Your kids are corkers!!! I love them to pieces!
Wow! This is hilarious! Plus, I can sure relate. Thanks for the great story.
We have to be very careful about what we read to our kids and what we let them watch on TV. Its amazing how much books and videos influences them. R.P.
So funny!!! I think it will be funny when they get much older and you read to them what you wrote here. I wonder if they will remember doing this. Loved it! Dianne C.
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