Food Is My Love Language

This week, I saw my future and it wasn’t pretty. 

 

If we’re friends on any form of social media, you now know that baseball has consumed our lives.  Don’t get me wrong, I love every minute of it but it’s really hard to have to leave work 2 hours early to get everyone picked up and to the ball park.  Thankfully, Sean has only had to miss a few games so far.  I know I’m not the only mom who doesn’t make some sort of a dinner plan and ends up waiting in line in the drive-through at Little Casers for a half an hour to get a shitty pizza…at least I hope I’m not.

 

On Tuesday, Sean was on shift and by the time I had picked up the kids it was close to 7 pm when we got home.  Dinner.  Not planned. Not even close.  The kids went straight for our old staple, Lucky Charms. I had a more difficult time deciding because I had eaten cereal for every meal that day.  Over the weekend, my lovely mother had cleaned out her freezer and brought over a multitude of frozen food selections.  Should I go with the pirogues? The freezer-burned pasty? No.  I decided on a Marie Calendars microwave dinner.  Two things. 1. I was clearly sodium deficient and needed to consume a weeks worth of salt in one meal. 2. The last time I ate a microwave meal I was 7. There were peas in my brownie and it scarred me for life.  

While Jack was busy practicing pop flies by himself in the back yard, I was shamefully eating my Salisbury steak dinner…gravy was everywhere and I started to think about the seniors I move into my community and the amount of TV dinners they ate before coming to me.  I daydreamed about what my life would be like when I’m 80 and quickly made a mental note to make Lucy promise to always pluck my chin hairs. 

If you need to know one thing about Sean and any of the guys on his crew, it’s that they are amazing cooks.  I’m not talking about endives topped with pears, which evidently is delicious.  I’m talking about bacon-wrapped meatloaf and things dripping with gravy.  It’s not pretty food but it’s delicious and if you know me at all, you know that good food is my love language. Whenever Sean cooks, I’m reminded of why I married him in the first place.  I mean, besides the fact that he’s ridiculously good-looking.  When Sean and his crew work a Saturday/Sunday shift, we have family night at the fire station.  It’s a tradition that Sean’s previous captain started and he was a genius for implementing it in the first place.  It’s a perfect time to eat great food, let the kids play, and more importantly get to know the other wives.  Dinner is usually interrupted for the guys to go on calls, and the wives have only ended up cooking once. In between the calls we enjoy great food and company.  If your firefighter’s crew doesn’t do this, suggest it. It’s something my kids and I will remember for the rest of our lives. The kids are spoiled with rides on the fire truck and even more fun for them, the chair races and hide and seek with scary clown and horse masks. Only once has someone had to get stitches. (Don’t tell the legal team at the FD because we’d be in huge trouble I’m sure.)  

These are some of the moments and memories I go to when life gets a little challenging. These amazing men who look at my husband as a brother and would do anything for him, they would do anything for me too. Their amazing wives who get this life and the challenges that come with it.  They are my own little village and the memories I’ve made with them so far have been remarkable.  Isn’t spending time with family and people you love what life is all about? That and a good plate of food?