Clean-up on Aisle Four!

I have been letting the kids play "shopping" lately in the pantry. They take Ella's baby buggy and pretend it's a shopping cart, and take things out of the pantry and put them in the "cart." They have a lot of fun doing it, and I figured that as long as they put everything away when they're done, it wouldn't be a problem. They've done it a few times, and as I think it's kind of cute they way they play together like this, I left them in the kitchen alone today to play while I sat in my room and put together my own shopping list. I heard a few bumps and knocks, but thinking (correctly, mostly) that they were just piling the cart too high, I didn't go to investigate. When I was done with my list, I went to the kitchen to get the kids ready to go shopping for real. As I approached, I smelled pepper, and I began to be suspicious - and there in the kitchen, were the children, looking very guilty, and standing in a mess of pepper - and coriander seeds, and sea salt, and curry powder. They had gotten into the spices, and had been happily dumping them out on the floor and spreading them around with their hands and feet when I caught them mid-sprinkle. The spice shelf is the second from the top, too, which means that they had to climb to get to them. Needless to say, they were in a little trouble - no TV for the rest of the day - and they are no longer allowed to play shopping in the pantry. I was even thinking when I was making my list that they were playing so sweetly and quietly together. The quiet part should have set off the alarm bells in my head: never trust quiet children. They are inevitably getting into trouble.

The one upside to this, other than the comedy factor, is that my kitchen now smells like coriander and pepper, with a little bit of curry in the background.