It was a normal Saturday morning. I wasn't the tag-along for my older sister today. She had already awoken and left to go play with her friends. My dad had two jobs. His second job required him to go in on Saturdays. That left just me and my mom at home. I had just awakened and I was hungry. I din't want the usual pop-tart or bacon with eggs. I wanted oatmeal, the winter treat, even though it wasn't winger. I asked my mom if I could have the maple brown sugar flavor with extra sugar and butter. Just the thought of the sweet, soggy oats melting in my mouth made me hungrier. She filled the teapot with water and set it on the stove to boil. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. That day I had decided to wear my new jean shorts. They were the cool pre-frayed kind that looked like they had already been cut from jeans to shorts and washed. I was trying to be stylish, like my older sister who was almost 8. I could hear the teapot screeching. Oatmeal time!
I hurried to the kitchen table saying, "Mommy, don't pour it, I wanna do it myself!" I'm not sure if it was pure stupidity or if I was at that stage in my life were I had to do every little thing by myself to prove i was a "big girl," but either way, I had my little heart set on being the one to combine the cup of boiling water with the packet of oatmeal. "No," my mother answered. She wasn't stupid. She knew better than to let a three year old handle anything hotter than room temperature. I sat in the wooden armless chair in front of the kitchen table, ignoring her response. My legs swung in delight. I was determined to make my own breakfast.
First, she sat a bowl in front of me with an unopened packet of maple brown sugar flavored oatmeal sitting inside. I tore open the packet, poured the grainy dry oats into my bowl, and waited for her to return with the water. Then, my mother set a large glass measuring cup on the table and said, "Tell me when the water gets to this line." She pointed to the red line that measured one cup. I lowered my head to the height of the line so I could get a better fiew. I wanted to make sure she had exactly one cup of water for me to pour. As the water hit the glass, I could see tiny bubbles forming at the bottom and stema fogging up the top half of the cup. One half, three-fourths, "One cup! Stop!" She stopped pouring the water from the teapot then walked back towards the stove to set the teapot down.
At last, this was my chance to prove that I wasn't a little baby, and that I could handle simple tasks such as making a small bowl of oatmeal. How hard could that be? "Mommy, let me pour it!" I didn't give her a chance to answer, let alone dash to the table to stop me from making one of the dumbest mistakes of my adolescence. In fact, my hand was alreay reaching towrds the handle of the cub before I spoke. I lifted the heavy glass, held it over the bowl, and turned the spout towards me. Bombs away! I emptied the entire cup of water with one twist of the wrist. All of the boiling water hit the oatmeal filled bowl so fast that it spilled right over the edge and all over the bare skin of my thighs. Instantly, my skin turned red and started to puff up. Never had I ever felt such a throbbing agony. All at once, I jumped out of my chair, dropping the glass into my bowl causing even more oatmeal and water to spill onto my lap. I belted out a shriek of excruciating pain. Not only did the water scald the point of contact on my thighs, but the heat continued to burn all around the area as well. It was so hot, and yet it was numbing me. I couldn't run because the more I moved, the more it hurt. So i stood bawling next to the kitchen table with my bowl of oatmeal all over the floor and the glass measuring cup upside down on the table.
My mother was terrified. She hadn't known that I was about to disobey her, but when she turned to look, it was too late to save me. She grabbed the icetray from the freezer and the towels from the counter top, then ran to my side. "What happened honey?" She cracked half of the ice out of the tray and onto the first towl. "I poured the hot water," I paused to sniffle and catch my breath, "and it fell onto my legs!" I sat on a new chair as my mother handed me the ice towl to put onto my right thigh. The pain wasn't as bad now. "My poor baby! You shouldn't have done that. I told you, no. How did you pour it?" My mother cracked the rest of the ice into the other towel and placed it on my left thigh. I lifted the wretched cup off the table and showed her. "Oh no, you can't pour it toward you like that. You have to pour it from the side, like this." She positioned my right hand holding the glass so that the spoiut faced left rather than directly at me. Such an effortless concept, but you don't think about direction or speed during your terrible 3's. You think of getting the food prepared on your won so you can show the adults how mature you are. Then you eat it as fast as you can so you can go outside to play.
Needless to say, I didn't have oatmeal for breakfast that morning. However, with the help of two large, painful, puss-filled blisters. on each thigh that wouldn't go away for weeks, I learned two of my many simple lessons that day that would change my life: always listen to mom because she knows what she's taking about, and never pour a hot liquid towards you really fast. To this day, not once have I spilled anything from pouring. I became an expert at it to ensure that my pour legs would never again feel the pain of all those burn blisters. As for my mom, her advice is always taken into account before I make any actions.
