A Cure for the "Maple Syrup Runneth Over"

I can't tell you how many times a nice and cozy morning breakfast has turned into my frantic shouts of "STOOOOOOOP POURING!!"  LOL!!  We've all been there when the ENTIRE bottle of syrup ($) ends up on one child's plate.  Or the ketchup bottle glubs out half it's contents in one hearty squeeze.  Or the kids have taken so much gravy, there's none left for... ME!

I put everything in these squeeze bottles-- Dressing, Condiments, Gravies, or whatever "saucy" stuff I'm serving.  It allows for the children to serve themselves but not to pour out the whole bottle in the process.  And, if I'm conserving, I fill it half way so that everyone will use less. (It's magic!)

I learned this from my "second mom", Frances, when I was a teenager, and crazy as I was, still enjoyed homemaking tasks and ideas.  Put the syrup in a pot, in the sink, and periodically run more hot water into it.  It warms up the syrup without having to microwave plastic.  I think about her every time I'm warming syrup, or digging under the couch cushions, or saying "this house is a mess".  I love her.

Elijah really enjoys learning how to cook and helping me in the kitchen.  French toast and turkey bacon.

We did have an injury though.  Elijah rested his arm on the edge of the smokin' hot frying pan.  He won't do that again.  Lesson learned, albeit the hard way.


"In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom."
-Barbara Costikyan


My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn't because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children.
-Bill Cosby

Each generation has been an education for us in different ways. The first child-with-bloody-nose was rushed to the emergency room. The fifth child-with-bloody-nose was told to go to the yard immediately and stop bleeding on the carpet.
-Art Linkletter

A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.
-Bill Vaughan