For our second installment of Together, Ever After we feature a warm stroy that so many parents will able to relate to in myriad ways; not just parents, but people.

And so I welcome, with gratitude,

Together, Ever After: Abbey’s Story

   Let me preface this by saying that I hate to cook. Everyone who knows me knows this fact.

I hate to cook.

But, alas, I am lucky enough to live with male appetites, and so I am stuck cooking. On Tuesday, Bob (my husband) was working super late, so I decide to try making a beef stew crock pot recipe that brings me good memories from when my mom used to make it when I was a kid. Well, I get home late, and by the time I get it going it is after 6:30pm. Now, this crock pot recipe requires 10 hours of slow cooking, so this means I have to get up at 4:30am to finish preparing it, put it in containers, clean-up, etc. In my mind, this will be a good thing because on Wednesday nights I take a graduate class, and this will be in the fridge for my family.

            Well, Wednesday came; I got home at 7:30pm, exhausted from the long class lecture and weary from a long day at the community college where I work. Immediately, my 3-year-old began screaming for me to build him a train track. My five year old was rambling on and on about it being the 100th day of school, and I realized that I still needed to make everyone lunch for the next day, even though I hadn’t eaten since noon. I still had my coat on!

            And then, suddenly, I remembered the stew. I jumped through the screaming & the rambling, the pleas for track-building, and the chaos that every parent knows well,

so that I could see Bob to ask him how it was. To this, I get “Stew? Ah no! I forgot you made it and had chicken nuggets with Riley.” CHICKEN NUGGETS WITH RILEY???

I woke up at 4:30am for that damn stew.

I showed some slight annoyance. With this, Bob felt terrible, and proceeded to take out the stew and eat it right then and there even though he is not the slightest bit hungry.

But then I could him chewing and instantly knew that something was wrong.

(I’m pretty sure stew is not supposed to crunch.)

Out of frustration, I blurted out, “UGH! I hate to cook!”

To this, Bob says, “and you are not very good at it.”

            Now, the shock of the boldness and directness of this insult throws me into a fit of laughter. I am confident and secure in my general abilities, and I do not need an “A” in cooking, so I am not really insulted, but the preparing and the waking up at 4:30, and the crunch of the meat, and the exhaustion and the cries for a train track and the sandwiches I had yet to make for lunch were all flying around me, and I could only laugh. I laughed hysterically.

            I calmed down, and Riley came back into the picture. He saw the bowl in Bob’s hand and, quite innocently and unknowingly, asked, “Hey Dad, how was the stew?” I was waiting for a sarcastic comment, but, without a flinch, Bob looked at him with a big smile and said, “Of course, it was awesome. Mommy made it.”

I looked up at Bob to see him smiling at me. Then, he pulled me into him and whispered in my ear that I looked cute. I slowly closed my eyes, and I thought to myself that thank goodness I have 2 hungry boys, an interesting lecture to go to every Wed. night, a job that makes me feel like I’m contributing to something good and a husband who understands, without explanation, that mommies can do no wrong in the eyes of their little boys and that that is how it should be.

I shook it all off.

            I made everyone their lunches. I built my little Jason’s track. I heard all about the 100th day of school celebration.

And then, I TOOK OFF MY COAT.

            Sometimes it takes a little crunchy stew to put it all in perspective. Maybe tonight I will tackle chicken cacciatore.