Glass and Paprika

Mistake #1: I somehow didn't communicate to my son that when you push the button lock on a door and then close it, the door is locked. And if you are not inside the room when the door is locked, well, then you're locked out. After he did exactly what I have just described, and I said, "Gabe! You just locked us out of the laundry room!" -- he looked at me and smiled like he didn't believe me. He tried the door himself. It didn't budge. Of course.

Mistake #2: I let Anna sit on the kitchen counter. She was helping me make cookies. She was supposed to be stirring the eggs and butter together.

Mistake #3: I left the room for five minutes because Sophie was crying in the other room. Five minutes.

Crash! "Mah-om!"

Dashing back into the kitchen, I found rusty brown powder spewed from one end of the kitchen floor to the other. At the end of the trail was a factured spice jar with "Paprika" printed on it. Scattered broken glass winked at me from the white tile.

"What happened?" I demanded, picking my way through the kitchen to where Anna was sitting on the counter, wide-eyed.

She explained that the paprika had fallen off the shelf. It was an accident.

"But why were you in the cupboard?" I asked.

"I needed to put in the ingredients," she replied.

That's when I looked in the bowl and saw the entire contents of our bag of sugar dumped in and stirred up.

"Okay, everybody stay where you are," I said, turning to fetch the broom.

I tried the handle to the laundry room where the broom is kept right next to the door.

Locked.

Sweeping up the glass and paprika with a dolly-sized broom and dustpan borrowed from my two-year-old is a brand of tedium I hope never to repeat.