Domestic Goddess

When the kids were little I never got around to cleaning the oven. (Don't ask what my excuse is now.) And so nearly every evening as I cooked dinner the roasted-on sludge would set off the smoke detector. The kids would run over and grab a dish towel and fan their hearts out. Or, just as often, scoot closer to the TV, turn the sound up and ignore the blaring blasts.

One morning, some friends were coming over. Ambitiously, I decided to make blueberry muffins from scratch. (FYI - I mean from a box, but you add an egg, so there's that.) A few minutes later the muffins, with their glorious little canned blueberries were tucked away in the oven, baking to a golden goodness when the smoke detector roared to life.

​My middle son ran over. His eyes were shiny and his mouth half open in astonishment. "Mommy, he asked, "Is it dinner already?"

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