The day I learned I was going to be a father was a late April morning, I woke up early, like at 6 am, to watch a Liverpool match, in fact, I had invited a friend who I only kinda knew to come over to my house to watch a soccer match at 6:30 am to watch the aforementioned soccer match.
So my alarm went off at 6, and, I can only assume my wife had been up for hours waiting for me to wake up and she presented to me a Liverpool onesie.1 I am not sure what words I had other than tears of joy and because we weren’t planning on telling anyone right away an immediate need to get my shit together because I needed to go watch a now completely ridiculous Liverpool match at 6:30 am with a friend who I couldn’t tell this amazing fucking news.
Now if you know me, you know I love gossip. I am, however, very respectful of things given directly to me. I do not betray a confidence, however, I was now given a secret that was partially mine, and a thing I wanted to shout from the rooftop, but I did not. I hugged my wife, went downstairs and probably for the only time in my life just blankly watched a soccer match. Honestly, I do not remember if we won or lost, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now!
When Anna told me we were expecting our second, she showed me a Manchester City skyline shirt2 and I was equally moved, I have always been a crier.
Which brings us to the present day. I now have a 4.5-year-old and a 2-year-old3, and if you’ve seen me or my wife or either of our parents/extended family, you’d know that we are not large people, in the vertical or horizontal sense4 and relatively healthy human beings.
I have worked a good deal of time in kitchens in my former lives, while I am no Dave Chang, I feel pretty comfortable working with the tools and resources I have available. I also feel pretty good at being able to whip something up from what we have available. This was fine5 when we didn’t have kids. But I pride myself on having a culinary eye, tongue, and nose. Things I spent years developing.
The TL;DR of this post is that my children are fucking monsters and I am just playing defense anytime I am trying to get nutrients into their stupid little tummies.
Once we started solid foods with Ragnar we basically started making meals for us that he could enjoy, probably dissected into their basic parts, but still, while we could eat the regular things. This meant things like Quesadillas, but just some warmed-up tortilla, cheese, and gauc on his plate6 just so that there would be something to eat.
I, however, very rarely waver from the things I want to eat. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but the parenting food mission statement we have is: Make the thing and the kids can eat it or they won’t7, that doesn’t mean you can’t break it down (we do this often), but it means that I am often humbled by my children’s plates at the end of the night. I am also humbled by their love of Oreos and Gummie Worms8.
My breaking point was tonight, the dinner I made was toasted sourdough bread (my kids love bread, especially sourdough with butter), roasted chicken thighs cooked in their own fat (the own fat part is something I enjoy, but my kids also like chicken, nugs especially as I soon found out) and a very sweet blueberry sauce with the aforementioned chicken fat, coriander, a bit of honey, garlic AND 3 CUPS OF BLUEBERRIES. How could my kids not love that?
Ladies and Gentlemen, they did not. They ate the shit out of the bread, the gummie worms, and the Oreos. Oh milk, they also drank milk, which we fortify with heavy cream, gotta get those fats somewhere!
My wife is a notorious Manchester City fan , in that she notoriously gives two shits about Manchester City, unless they are playing Liverpool or the one time they win a continental trophy my team has won 6 times.
She couldn't secure a Man City shirt in time, I am assuming this was the world conspiring against her.
Holy Fuck, where does the time fly.
Editors note: You could probably lose a few lbs in the midsection though, you know.
This was also occasionally, not fine.
Don’t worry we are not monsters we gave him a proper quesadilla as well.
TM
I have words for you Nabisco and whomever supplies Gummie Worms to Cub Foods.