My Egg is Not Soupy & Other Problems (Not a Food Post)

I had not intended to stay quiet around here for so long. 

A year ago I rounded up the kids, packed whatever I thought I couldn't live without and moved across the world to Canada to start a new life without one essential component: my husband. 

We hadn't planned on a long separation: he intended to join us within a year. But as these things go, stuff happened, plans changed and I now find myself looking at an indefinite stretch of years ahead without him. 

The day he travelled back to the Middle East (our home of 12 years), my middle child looked out the window at his cab disappearing down the street and said, "Now it's going to be a very quiet house without Baba". 

This single-parent thing is challenging. Every once in a while I find myself overwhelmed and far, far from being a picture of grace under pressure. In our initial four-month adjustment-phase the kids and I often got frustrated, tangled in the web of our mutual expectations from each other and unable to move past small things. 

I tried to be honest with them: sat them down many times and apologized for my short-fuse shortcomings, explaining that I sometimes find it all very hard and I need them to help by being responsible and cooperative. It didn't seem to really ring home. 

We travelled back 'home' during Christmas Break for some family-time. On my last day there I went to say a quick goodbye to one of my best friends in the neighbourhood and shamelessly broke down saying, "I'm scared of what these kids will put me through again. I don't want to go back and face it". 

My fears were mostly unfounded. Many things improved. Maybe their father waved a magic (sedating) wand over them. Everyone was much calmer from then on. 

Now that the settlement phase is past us; rituals and routines are in place, we can focus the next year on creating memories.  

I'd say we did okay. I did okay. 

Although there were moments.. after the kids were in bed, for instance, the weight of  the lonely, long winter evenings was unbearable. Because I could not recreate the daily rituals from my other life, I found sleep to be the preferable alternative to facing a deafening silence that even a television cannot mute. 

And then there are small things: I eat my eggs over-easy & maybe a teensy bit over-cooked but my kids like their fried eggs with runny yolks. Despite my best intentions, I can't make the perfect fried egg. It's my  husband's forté. It's probably the only cooking he has ever done and can do. Each weekend he would fix breakfast with his little assistants crowded around him, cheering him on. 

It's a real treat watching them together. Or hearing them pottering together in the kitchen. He is infinitely more patient than me and fully-engaged when he spends time with them. They say "he makes everything fun". 

Funnily this little truth no longer stings me. Nor do their other little comparisons. Last month one of my kids announced, "you make the worst soupy-eggs in the world! Baba is the best cook!". Then she quickly bit back her words, scanned my face for visual signs of emotional trauma and slowly said, "You're the best cook in the world for everything except eggs. Baba makes the best eggs. You know he can't cook anything else". Her earnestness made me laugh. 

We'll go back in a few weeks. But this time, they have things to look forward to in their new, albeit Baba-less, life. And I'm feeling strong enough to do it all over again. 

Venting

These days I'm replete of all mental energy after spending just shy of half a day hanging around alone with the placid, independent and easy-going baby of the first year who has now morphed into not only a tantrum-throwing whirlwind of dangerous activity but also a constant, clingy shadow. The rest of it is just her being her toddler self, asserting her place and presence in the family, and I know it's a phase but the clinginess. . the clinginess, people!

After 4 p.m. I'm checking the clock every five minutes, counting down ... dinner: 5:30 p.m.  ... kids in bed: 6:45 p.m ... 7:15 p.m., complete silence: the moment I was waiting for all day. When I can flop on the couch, unwind, have a peaceful dinner with the man when he gets home a half hour later and catch up our individual days. And then, most evenings, fall into dead slumber before 9 p.m.

To say the least, this is a frustrating phase. I dislike how anxiously I count down the hours between her two naps & bed time. And then what a tyrant I am with the older kids about sticking to the schedule each evening and how it's 'hurry, hurry, hurry - everyone eat and get into bed already!'. It seems really mean. Especially considering I have only 3 hours with the older two, between their getting home and going to bed. But I'm failing to get most productive things done and a sense of urgency is beginning to creep up as several deadlines approach. I feel completely inadequate and don't know how anyone with young kids at home finds their balance. For one, they must have really sedate children!

Because today is the first chilly day of the season, and because I can't do much more than fiddling my thumbs while the toddler sleeps, and because I have a dozen things-to-do carried over from yesterday: dinner today is Pea Soup and, hopefully, some kind of sandwiches. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson. I saw it on one of the early episodes of her tv show on BBC Food very, very long ago and it popped into my mind today because I was trying to think of something I can make very quickly, without having to dice or finely chop anything. This fits the bill quite nicely since all it requires is frozen peas, a shallot and some vegetable stock. And the fact that it is called Slime Soup should hopefully appeal to my kids.

Oh, I so want to be Nigella Lawson when I grow up

Meanwhile we can pretend I look as rapturous and Domestic Goddess-like as Nigella when she is working in the kitchen, that I magically whip up delicious and impressive daily meals ... despite the toddler clinging to my leg, the kitchen counter brimming with every utensil, jarred spice and whatever else I am cooking with, the sink full of dishes, remnants of breakfast yet to be cleared from the dining table and the puddle of juice the toddler has managed to spill on the floor and is happily splashing with one hand, the other chubby hand firmly holding on to my leg . . .

Slime Soup
by Nigella Lawson (found here)
makes 1 litre

4 cups frozen peas (I used petit pois)
1 scallion
3 cups boiling water
vegetable broth concentrate or a stock cube (I used 3 oxo cubes of vegetable stock)
1 ball mozzarella

Cook the frozen peas and scallion in the boiling water with the stock concentrate/stock cube until soft and cooked through. Remove and discard the scallion.

Roughly chop the mozzarella and put it into a blender along with the soup. Blend, return it to the pan to make sure all the cheese has melted. Serve.