Awkward Mom vs. Pickles

The long awaited pickle post. Prepare for positively preposterous phrases and awesomely awkward alliteration!

I like pickles. I am a fan. I even crave them when pregnant. Don't want 'em on my hamburger but other than that, pickles are just fine in my book.

Super Preschooler loves pickles. Loves. He is like 16 pregnant women and a dude with a sodium deficiency all living together in a Vlasic pickle cult with the Groucho Marxish stork as their strangely charismatic leader. Is it dinner time? Super P. wants a pickle. Is it breakfast? Super P. wants a pickle. Is it the middle of the afternoon at the park on a Tuesday? Super P. wants a pickle. Is it 2 in the morning? The boy is asleep! (I am not totally irresponsible.) But he is probably dreaming about pickles.

Well, during our jam-and-can awhile back (oh fear not, we are doing it again, and this time I will get pictures), I causally mentioned that we could also make pickles if we wanted. The boy's eyes grew about 3 times their size and he actually dropped a spoon. "You can make pickles?!" Now, I don't know if he thought fairies made them or if they dropped down from a dill field in heaven, but the idea that mere humans could actually make pickles blew his mind. Struck him speechless, which, as you all know, is not exactly normal for Super P. Well, after that wore off, he wore me out with his requests that me make pickles. So, I decided to give in and make sure he has some good stories to tell his therapist someday.

Now, the last time I made pickles was for my wedding. (Don't ask.) It had been awhile, but I was confident in my ability to troll allrecipes.com until I found one easy enough for my liking. I was thinking like 5 ingredients or less. Found one! Looks like I am not the only lazy pickler on the planet. I am, however, toward the lazier end of lazy picklers. I didn't even buy jars. Now, I did buy jars for our jam foray and I faithfully water-bathed them away like tiny little bombs on my stove. Basically stood 8 feet away and turned the stove off with a broom handle, but I canned, Readers. I canned. Canned them in our air conditioned apartment before we moved.

It was 102 degrees the day I finally gave in to Super Preschooler's pickle pleas. Anybody wanna ponder what my proposal proved to be? Fridge pickles, it is!

Now even the recipe that I found had too many ingredients for me, so I altered it freely. Go big or go home, that is what I always say. OK, I have never said that, but I don't like sugar in my pickles and I didn't have any green peppers and I really really like garlic. Other than that, I kinda, sorta, maybe if you squint, followed the recipe. But really, you aren't here to learn how to make fridge pickles. You are here to see wildly out of focus photos that Super Preschooler took, so let's get to that, shall we?

Let's kick things off with a posed photo I took of Super P. pretending to pucker while pondering the potential pickle:

Note that he standing on a chair near the sink. A sink surrounded by dirty dishes...just noticed that. Oh well. Who else wants to be on a chair by the dirty sink?


Who thinks it would be a good idea to take pictures and taunt his brother from his perch on the chair by the sink?




There were about 13 more of those, but you get the idea.

There are exactly 19 pictures of me peeling garlic that all look like this one:


There are 12 pictures of the garlic and green onions sitting by the sink. The amount of garlic grows, but there are no other differences.


Here is a picture of the cabinets above the fridge:


And here is a drawer full of bibs:


Super P. decided at this point that he was good enough to work for National Geographic and he was bored. So, I took the camera and documented his pickle packing protocol. (Shoot, who am I gonna blame the fuzziness of the photos on now?)


He put every single pickle piece in with a ladle. I am surprised that we still aren't packing pickles.


Explaining his methods.

Every single piece had to be ladled, Readers. Every single one.

Super Preschooler thought the jars were pretty, and they were. Being jam jars and adorably small. But Superhero picklers (or picklers of any affiliation, for that matter) do not make puny pickles. He got to keep 1 jar:


The rest went into 2 leaky plastic containers that immediately made the whole fridge smell like vinegar.

And now, a series of pictures that we proudly call: a Preschooler and his Pickles:

Pensive.

Perplexed.

Puerile.

Preposterous.

Perfect.

Does anyone know how to properly praise thesaurus.com for a pursuit that was positively professional and polished, while being a picnic, a piece of cake, and plain sailing? Ponder and post me your plan, please.