How to make and eat a berry smoothie

With your baby brother

This is what happens when you leave the baby brother home alone with Karen.

Step one: Give the baby brother something to play with while you make a smoothie.
Something harmless but in the kitchen so he can watch you and you can talk to him. I should have just put him in his seat but I didn't think of that. I gave him a big loud pot to bang on.

Step two: Gather ingredients.
I used all the berries I could find in our freezer, plus some berry jam, yogurt and a spoonful of sugar. I don't like bananas, and though my dad and sister say this is a must for a smoothie, I refuse to put it in. We didn't have any milk or juice so I had to use water. Then I found the biggest, tallest, smoothie cup in our cupboard to put it all in.

Step three: Put down that baby.
I don't know how he got there. Some how those big blue eyes convinced me that he belonged on my hip. I also had to remind him that his teeth were made for biting food, not sisters. But one cannot make a smoothie with a one year old in ones arms. So he had to go.

Step Four: Mix it all up.
This is a tricky business, as most of the ingredients are frozen solid and our little blender had lived active life already and wishes very much for an early retirement. There was a stubborn block of strawberry ice that would not be smoothied. I had to fish it out and defrost it for a while in the microwave. There was some adding of extra berries and yogurt to thicken things up since I didn't have milk.

Step Four: Keep the baby brother form poisoning himself.
Funny how we never baby proofed our kitchen. The cupboard under the sink is full of cleaners and David was determined to get a hold of some Simple Green or, better yet, some Lysol. I guess he was attracted to the smells. We argued about that for some time.

Step Five: Situate yourself for best possible enjoyment of smoothie.
I ended up sitting on the floor with my back against the cleaning cupboard door. No little explorers could get in that way.

Warning: sharing smoothie with a baby brother may result in stained clothing.
It all went very well until he stuck his elbow in the cup. I took a spoonful and then gave him one. His little mouth was rimmed with purple berry juice within minutes. At first he was sitting in front of me. Then I wasn't giveing him his spoonfuls fast enough so he stood up. And then he was sitting on my lap. And then he was trying to get his fingers in that nice cold purple stuff in the cup. I managed to keep the fingers out most of the time. Like I said, he stuck his elbow in at one point and I had to lick it off before he wiped it on my shirt. He thought that was pretty funny. And yes, I know where else his elbow has been. I should have given up on my clothes long ago. Moments later he wiped his mouth on my shoulder. Actually I think he was trying to give me a kiss for sweetly making him a smoothie but the result was the same; my nice yellow shirt has berry stains.
Other than that we had a nice time.

Step Six: Enjoy
We agreed that it was a pretty nice smoothie.