Food, glorious food.

The time in my life when I enjoyed grocery shopping was when I lived in an apartment near the University of Maryland, with Ginny. In those days, cooking was fun. Stocking our kitchen (it had a pink stove and refrigerator, which lowered our rent by $50 a month,) gave us a giddy sense of independence, and cooking was a relaxing diversion from the necessary drudgery of studying for another chemistry exam.

As I recall, I kind of liked it during the early days of marriage too. I seem to remember having the turntable somewhere weird, like on top of a kitchen cabinet, but it pleased me to spin a Judds lp while putting thoughtful preparation into a meal at our downtown house. (which we left at 7 months gestation because I remember being keenly aware that when the burglars next came a’knocking I could easily climb from the bedroom deck, to the courtyard wall, to the neighbor’s yard myself, but a baby would limit my escape possibilities.)

I distinctly remember making the point to Jeff that grocery shopping with a baby was twice as hard as doing it solo. (not that shopping solo as a young, unencumbered 20-something is even remotely difficult, so you could make it twice as hard without doing much damage.) But even dinner prep, with the kid around, had its charm. I tended to tuck the little one in a front-carrier and carry on as usual, with the occasional tendency to drop pasta sauce on the kid’s head.

I stopped liking grocery shopping as it came to mean the following things: Someone would drop a jar of applesauce in aisle 9. Someone would sneak Sugar-blasted fluorescent gummy-snake puffs into the cart when I wasn’t looking. Someone would have a nuclear meltdown in the check-out line. And years later, someone would go shopping with me as a consultant, only to decry (the very next day) the utter lack of edible food in the house..

There was an even messier slew of reasons why my interest in cooking dried up and died an early death. Most people know this one--children like to fight and yell during dinner prep time. But I had some unique ones: A year spent with rainwater falling in 30 gallon trash cans all over the house--several in the kitchen. Several years during which the demolition stage of the house transformation meant that loose insulation and 40 year old rotten rafter debris were as likely to be unintentional dietary additives as dog and cat hair.

It seems that the family has more or less learned to accept that they don’t have that kind of mother anymore. And something cool is happening--not all the time, but last night was a shining example--Becca made vegetable pot pie. Olivia made mashed potatoes. Gabe made apple crumble. I ate. And under the circumstances, I was more than happy to help clean up.