Morning Dishes

Usually, I make sure the kitchen is mostly cleaned up before going to bed at night. Clean dishes are put away, dirty dishes are in the washer, and the washer is set to start during the night. So in the mornings, we can start our breakfast time with a clean slate — the sink looks like this:

One day last week, Wifegrit was out of town overnight. So that meant it was my job to get the boys ready for school in the morning. After the boys had eaten their breakfasts and made their lunches, (they make their own breakfasts and lunches, with adult supervision), the sink looked like this:

Now, I hadn’t had the time to empty the dishwasher of the clean dishes from the night before, so I couldn’t just load these into the washer. If I wanted a clean sink again, I had to do them by hand. When Wifegrit came home that afternoon, I wanted her to walk in to a neat kitchen. (It’s a minor thing, but it’s nice to not walk into a messy house.) So I did those dishes by hand. The sink was clear, and the drying rack looked like this:

Do you see that? For the boys to make and eat breakfast and make their lunch, it messed up 5 plates, 2 bowls 2 cups, a few utensils, a cutting board, and some other odds and ends. Two. Boys.

I had to run upstairs to get my backpack and make sure all the bedroom lights and fans and radios were turned off for the day. When I came back downstairs to the kitchen for one last look through, the sink looked like this:

What the hell!? Everyone was packed and ready for school. But somehow more dirty dishes magically appeared. How? I threw up my hands and quickly washed those surprise dishes.

Happily, when we walked out the door, the sink was empty and the kitchen was neat. I didn’t think to ask Wifegrit about it, but I wonder if more dishes had appeared in the sink by the time she got home that afternoon.

Bullgrit