When we got married we registered for nice, heavy ceramic dishes. They are great. Of course, the dinner plate is too big to fit in most cupboards, they are thick and take up a lot of room, and the plates are too heavy for kids. But they are pretty. SO, with this last move, I kept them in the box and ordered myself a few boxes of plain white Corelle dishes. They are light weight, break resistant (we test this theory daily) and my favorite part is they stack so well that I can fit the whole set on one shelf. Who could ask for anything better?
The downside: They are light. Light and slippery. Slippery and light. What happens when a smooth table, a Corelle bowl full of sticky rice and a preschooler collide in one location? Well, rice stuck all over the floor, of course! I have had to retrain my children to hold on to their dish with one hand while they are eating so that the scooping fork or spoon doesn't shove it right off the table. Sometimes multiple times a day I was pulling my hair out cleaning up breakfast, lunch or dinner off the floor while a hungry kid cried because she just accidentally tossed her food on the floor.
Enter: my solution. The silicone hot pad. Sent to me from above... the stove. I now put it under cereal bowls and plates cluttered with grapes and bananas to prevent what had become the inevitable. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. A silpat will also do the job. It works for me!
