LC came back from her trip to Africa with a lovely cook book from the International School who were hosting their trip. She decided yesterday to cook a meal from the book. A three course meal! I was delighted. A whole evening off :)

Then came my mistake. She showed me what she planned to cook: Tomato and Almond Soup followed by Chicken Tetrazzini; the "Tetra" being pasta, mushrooms and chees and for dessert, Sticky Toffee Pud'.

I was promised faithfully that no frying was involved and that she would be very careful, especially with the toffee bit of the pud'. I trolled off to feed the moos. She's cooked heaps of times before, what could go wrong?

The first hiccup was apparently the lack of "Tetra" ingredients She could only find cheese and pasta - more importantly she couldn't even find chicken! So we had pasta with cheese sauce à la the children's menu at your local Harvester restaurant! It tasted great so no complaints there and JT was relieved there were no mushrooms as he hates 'em.

Then, half way through preparation, came the phone call from the house on my mobile:

"Mum"
"Yes"
"The recipe said to put the soup in a food processor but it all spurted out of the smoothie maker and its all over the kitchen"
"88|Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat88|? Smoothie makers are for cold things that's why the lid doesn't seal. What state's the kitchen in?"
"I've cleaned up the kitchen and put my clothes in the wash but the burn on my neck hurts"
(another) "88| Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat 88|" (followed by immense guilt at worrying about the state of my new kitchen when my daughter has 3rd degree burns)

I raced up from the field at double quick time to find my eldest daughter with a scald the size of my hand on her neck, some tiny scalds on her face and a couple on her arm. It looks like it may scar too as it has gone a funny shade of brown. We did all the right things, cling film cold compresses and burn cream for afters.

I'm usually so careful. I really can't believe I left her to her own devices. I think I have been lulled into a false sense of security by her apparent spurt of growing up recently. Never again.

Tonight LC decided that she, Mog and JT were going to sleep in a tent in one of our fields with a friend. The thought of them waking up in the dead of night and blundering into an electric fence in a bid to find the house and a toilet filled me with dread so I have made myself very unpopular and put the kibosh on that little adventure. Isn't parenting complicated.