God Bless the Dishwasher

For five years, the dishes were the bane of my experience. Five years of cooking almost every single meal at home, and washing every single dish, every fork and spoon, every pot and pan and cutting board. And spatulas and whisks and peelers and graters. Five years of trying to figure out how to put a dishwasher in a kitchen with a white refrigerator and a black stove without replacing an extra major appliance. And debating the trade-off of losing one of only four lower cabinets.

I am so very happy to report, our new house has a dishwasher. And while it does not wash our plates (they are, inexplicably, too large, and not just because they are modern plates which I understand to be several inches larger than plates once were, to accommodate our expanding tastes, both edible and aesthetic; no, our dishwasher will not wash our vintage plates, either), I am still in bliss. I never minded washing plates, anyway- so smooth, so round; quite satisfying, really. No, it's the silverware, mounds of silverware, and the cups- how does a family of four accumulate SO many dirty cups in a single day? And beyond taking the task of cutlery and glassware off my hands, the dishwasher makes clean up manageable-- in fact, I now remember what it is like to actually have time to wipe down the counters and the sink and send the kitchen off to bed to the low, glorious hum of dishes washing, all on their own. In the morning, I get up and unload the dishwasher so that, all day long, I can put soiled dishes right on in there as the soiling occurs. And it feels that my day has begun on an orderly note.

There is only one problem to all of this domestic bliss.

Can you guess?



That's right: Eleri.

Like her Mommy, Eleri loooooves the new dishwasher. She loves to unload the silver, whether clean or dirty. Loves to pick up the bowls and threaten to drop them to the marmoleum floor, where they just might smash to bits (she is, after all, an unusually strong baby.) Loves to reach for the knives. Truly, all those spoons placed so carefully towards the front, within her reach, yet she can spot that one, lone knife at the back?


Why yes, she can.

But Eleri also loves cling to the backs of my legs while I cook over the hot, hot stove, right ther where she might get spashed by something scaling. She loves to remove al of the magnets from the refrigerator. To unload the lazy suzan. (A lazy susan!!!) So I have decided to pick my battles, and use that dishwasher to my advantage. Eleri, honey, you go right ahead and re-arrange that cutlery. Yes.

But please, enough with the knives.