The Mommy Kitchen

Every so often, I peruse a big, unread stack of catalogs sent me in the mail. I sit, put up my feet, and covet away my hour, thinking, "Why not? Why can't my kitchen look like that?" Then a voice interrupts my thoughts with, "Mommy, I'm hungry!"

And another hour of feeding begins. Suddenly, I remember exactly why my kitchen must remain neutralized in the more rustic style for a few more years. Small children keep it real when it comes to homes, and especially the kitchen. Decorative gets bumped for functional. Handy steps aside for safe. And clean takes a bow before it takes a vacation . . . for about the next decade.

So while the shiny catalogues glimmer in the back of my mind, here are some ideas for the ideal Mommy kitchen in rough-draft form:

1.  Anechoic walls. Too much noise in that room! One cry seems to reverberate off counters, pots, pans, and even other children. Give us a few walls that absorb that cry, at least toning it down a bit. Who doesn't want use of their ears once they reach 65?

2.  Kitchen seat belts. The infants get used to being strapped in for a dinner. Let's keep it up with the older kids, too. No more sprinting off after they eat just one nibble of your last two hours of work. We could automatically strap them in, only agreeing to release them after a sufficient portion of food disappears. 

3.  An alarm system. This would function for the burglars that actually live with you, not threats from the outside. Here's how it works:  You decide to take a harmless nap on the couch and someone wants to steal the last of the ice cream in the freezer. Beep! Beep! Beep! Busted. The alarms could also go off for cabinets and, of course, the oven for curious toddlers.

4. The Trough. My favorite feature, by far. During the day, Mom gets a number of requests for food which never fall at convenient times. The Trough would solve this problem. The design looks something like a two-foot tall box with a lever on the side. (The "table" top would actually consist of two rectangular planks.) Keep the snack food perched on top of it throughout the day, allowing kids to graze through the kitchen and munch as needed. When snack-time ends, pull the lever and the two planks turn to face each other, letting all unwanted leftovers fall into the middle, where a tidy little trash can awaits to whisk your mess neatly away. All that remains of cleaning crumbs is a swipe of the planks just before bedtime.

There are more ideas, but that's the beginning of this kitchen re-vamping. Maybe you can send me more ideas and who knows? Maybe someday, kitchens can become rooms that don't creep into our nightmares!