Yesterday I had a pretty typical Tuesday as a nanny to four, mother to one. My day began long before dawn, with the welcome refreshing of a shower after a night of pee and spit up and baby sweat all over me (my baby is a sleep-sweater. Maybe that's why he wants to nurse all night long: to keep hydrated.) Weekdays must begin around 5:30am if I want to make any semblance of effort with preparing myself (and not just Roger) for the day ahead. I have officially become a morning person, because of how much better I feel when I give myself time to be by rising earlier.
Roger had a crabby start to the morning, which was no surprise given his restless night, but I was still able to make myself open-faced egg sandwiches with sharp cheddar, sriracha salt, and chives... Somehow. The details are fuzzy on what was occupying my baby while I cooked that miracle breakfast.
Then off to work, fighting Roger into his car seat (which he has decided to hate again.) Once at the house where I nanny, Roger becomes the happiest chap you ever met because he's with all his BFFs and you'd never know he had such a rough night.
The day zooms by. Really, my days never drag. With two babies, a toddler, and two "big boys," I have plenty to occupy the hours.
5pm, I struggle against my little anti-car-seatist until he submits to the straps and buckles and it's homeward we go.
After parking in the driveway, I gather a fair amount of garbage and dirty dishes left in the van by a certain tall, bearded man I know, and rescue Mr. Grumpy from his evil car seat and head inside.
So here's the hidden gem of my day: I walk in the door and as I ascend the steps of our duplex, I am greeted by the smell of cooking aromatics with that distinctly savory tang that means someone used fish sauce (my favorite thing that is nasty on its own but completely necessary for umami in certain dishes.) I think, ok, could be from the neighbor's kitchen, which often emits the lovely scents of their cooking (they are fellow foodies), but could be ours. Don't get your hopes up, Libby. Be happy with any effort on Dave's part and don't hold him to unreal expectations.
I open the door, hand Roger to his daddy for hellos, and after I complain and nag to Dave for a full minute about the trash and dishes I had just brought in with me from the car, I look at the table and realize he had made Thai-style turkey cabbage wraps (I posted the recipe on my old blog a while back). Hence the smell. Instant guilt. Haha.
Sometimes I have to let go of making my points. Even when I've asked him specifically not to do something, maybe multiple times, I still can and should season my words to (and my thoughts about) him with an underlying belief that he is awesome. Because he is. He's just not perfect.
He serves me my dumplings with their spicy dipping sauce and casually says there's dessert too. [ok maybe he is perfect.] I'm crumbling the insides of a turkey dumpling onto Roger's high chair tray while he giddily stuffs his little face, and I'm like, "Huh? Did you make a dessert too!? What did you make?"
"It's just strawberries." But he has a tone. A Norwegian tone; the extra dry kind that us non-Scandinavians have to be extra attentive to catch. I didn't really catch it myself, I just thought he was acting a lot less excited than he normally would be for having cooked a great meal for us. He says a few more dismissive things about the strawberries, gets them out and a tub of what I thought was yogurt, and then, all coy-like, he pulls out a container [hidden] from the top shelf of the pantry with H O M E M A D E B I S C U I T S inside.
Yes. He baked. And the yogurt container had fresh whipped cream, made by him, inside. And the strawberries were macerated and ready to go. Out of nowhere: strawberry shortcake!
David, you sly dog.
So I was pretty much the happiest wife and mama in the world for that dinner hour. David even did the dishes afterwards, while I put our cranky boy to bed.
Some days start out mundane and end in magic. I'm in a good place when I can see the beauty of my life in the midst of it.
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