As Bridget Jones Would Put It: V. Early

It was the dog barking that woke me up. Barley the Dog Faced Boy was freaking out, and as I came out of the ether I smelled smoke.

I've had a house fire, and one of those is enough for a lifetime. So the smell of smoke brought me to pretty quickly. I go running into the kitchen and Mo is up, playing on the computer. The TV was on, turned to the Home Shopping thing. The microwave was humming and three blackening Ore-Ida fries were going around smoking.

Mo had an oven mitt on and was was noshing on another cinder fry as she played on KidPix.

It was 4:00 a.m., but she was up and apparently hungry for French fries. She was in a good mood, happily beat-boxing and singing away.

I heated up some fries and threw on some chicken nuggets for good measure and eventually convinced her to go back to bed at 5:00, but I don't think she really went back to sleep. Every time I thought it might be safe to put my head gear back on and conk out myself I'd hear a thump and find she'd tossed her mattress off its frame or something.

Every meal today, Mo has dragged the fries out of the freezer. She had fries for breakfast, fries for lunch and fries with her grilled salmon for dinner. In fact, she at the fries I'd heated up for her before she ate any salmon at all, and I think she'd have forsaken the fish for more fries if I had them. The bag was empty by now.

Come to find out, the Artist Formerly Known as Frau Lobster has taught Mo how to bake a potato in the microwave. Four minutes is the right time for a small spud in their microwave. Mo is logical to a fault, so when she woke up hungry and her body was screaming for starch, she grabbed the fries. I didn't have any potatoes on hand, but I think she probably figured if it takes four minutes to cook a potato that this is also the time it takes for something made from a potato. We'll have to refine her instruction on this score.



The salmon, by the way, was skinless. So I placed it on a bit of foil, which I sprayed with pan spray, before I grilled it. I worried about it because I'd had bad luck int he past with this technique. It turned out perfectly.