Cookie Dough and Merlot

You may already know this, but F and I have recently had an enormous change in our lives.

A few, actually, such as Mr Hockey Coach finally meeting him and my new job throwing a real curveball into our schedules. But the biggest adjustment we've recently made comes in the form of a sweet little boy from preschool. And lemme tell you, it's an adventure.

Little and F became fast friends when we switched preschools in November 2013 and, as they say, the rest is history. It didn't take long before we had "double dates" to the Discovery Centre and dinners out, and the friendship and support that I've found in Little's dad has been great. He picked F up from school for a few days while I was navigating through rush hour traffic. F spent the night one night so I could go out with Mr Hockey Coach. You get the drift. So it was a no-brainer for me when Little's dad was in a pickle for child care.

We're on day five of 18 right now, and I'd be telling you the biggest lie if I said it's been easy. It hasn't. The boys - though friends - are as different as night and day. They've been bickering and tattling and whining. And we already know how I feel about my parenting skills. Little has been (understandably) lonesome without his dad and F has struggled with the change in schedule, too. 

When Little was especially sad last night upon getting home from preschool, I searched for the right words. The right activities. And then it hit me. Like all sadness, the pain of heartache can be cured by chocolate chip cookies and I just so happen to love baking. Slightly frazzled and with a list as long as my arm of things I needed to do, I marched to the kitchen without even changing out of my work clothes and we whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies as a team: Little, F and I.

And then, after the cookies were eaten and I'd finished my yoga practice, and (almost) all of the tears were wiped, little teeth were brushed and pajamas put on, I found myself standing alone in my kitchen with a glass of red wine eating the ball of cookie dough I'd saved in the fridge.

Because that is parenting. It's Cookie Dough and Merlot.