My sweet son has had a fascination with the toilet for ever so long, when anything in the house went missing, the commode was the first place we looked. In its watery recesses we discovered such items as the cordless phone, the television remote, my darling daughter’s hairbrush and numerous MATCHBOX cars. But, like all toddlers, he quickly tires of such forms of entertainment and moves on to bigger and better things. To my utter dismay, his attention is now firmly directed towards the microwave.

When it first started it was actually kind of sweet. I had one of those rice filled bags that you heat for a few minutes and then lay on whichever part of your body is aching. For me, that’s usually my neck. So, at anytime throughout the day that I dared to sit down, my precious boy child would grab the rice bag and heat it up for mommy. I didn’t mind that at all. In fact, thought it quite thoughtful of him. That was until he nuked my home remedy into one big, foul smelling, gooey glob of nastiness.

You can imagine how things progressed from there. He became totally obsessed with transforming everything in the house into charred remnants of its former self. There were exploding bananas, molten pools of plastic utensils and meat that went in rosy pink and came out jerky brown. My little Chef Boyardee has singed the fringe off my dish towels, fried his father’s work socks and sautéed a Hot Wheels in a cup of milk, with a little cat chow mixed in for good measure.

I pleaded with my husband to rig the microwave with an alarm that would alert me to my son’s misdeeds, but alas, he said it wasn’t possible. I tried moving it around in the kitchen to higher and less accessible areas but that too, failed. (He’d simply climb like the monkey he is until he could reach it.) I went so far as to take it out of the kitchen entirely, storing it in a closet beneath the staircase. But, the first time my dear family cried, “Popcorn!”, I realized I’d still not found the solution. (Don’t ask me to make popcorn the old fashion way; life is too hard as it is.)

Finally, with no other choice left remaining, my sweet son had been temporarily banned from the kitchen. Yes, you’ll often hear me screaming his name at the top of my lungs, usually followed by “OUT.” And I’m often seen running from room to room, assuring myself that he’s anywhere but the kitchen. You might even catch me threatening him with a spatula, but only if my “mommy voice” doesn’t get the results I’m looking for. But, at least I’ll not have to explain to an insurance adjuster that my two-year-old is an arsonist.