Hero Hottie to the Rescue

    Tacos are a staple in our dinner routine. We use corn tortillas, Amy's refried beans and fresh lettuce and green onions. It's an easy and completely gluten free meal. Because of Bean's gluten allergies her comfort foods aren't the usual American meals. She likes mac and cheese but it's not quite the same with the rice noodles. It was only recently that we finally found a hamburger bun that made having burgers worth it. Before these latest hamburger buns we were stuck with hard, round, thick, dense pieces of bread that could have been used for hockey pucks when they dried out.
   So tacos became her comfort food. And they became my go to meal when I needed something I could make in less than fifteen minutes. Because unless you're rich, eating gluten free is vastly time consuming. There are so many things that have to be prepared from scratch. I suppose I don't cook more than my great Aunt Dottie ever did for her family forty years ago but I'm a woman of the 21st century, I thought long hours in the kitchen was something you read about in the history books.
   Not something I was going to have to participate in.
   And since eating out is a lot like playing Russian roulette when you have gluten allergies, we prefer to stay home. The few places and the handful of meals we have determined to be safe for our girls to eat are also menu items that have to be made from scratch and cost quite a bit. We don't eat fast food. Our favorite places to eat are local restaurants. But that makes going out to eat a treat and not a weekly break from cooking.
   And not only do I have to prepare dinner from scratch but lunch too. Luckily, we found a decent bread and bagel for toast in the mornings.
   But after a few years of both my girls being gluten free, preparing food at home is finally easy.

   Two nights ago though, I started cutting green onions and preparing rice and I just started crying. The easiest meal I could prepare and it was too much. I wanted to sit down in the middle of the kitchen and give up.
   "I just feel so overwhelmed." I told hero hottie, as I cried while the stirring the refried beans.
    He frowned, concerned."I know how you feel."
    Because his life has been overwhelming lately too, since his employers decided to make his life crazy with  new rules and new schedules. It has been weeks since we all sat down and had dinner together. On top of that his good friend, Justin is moving to the East Coast in a few weeks. And then he is faced with a wife that is crying while making dinner.
    "I know." I sniffled.
    I don't usually cry while making dinner, not since I figured out how to prepare all our foods gluten free. But it had been a long day, which had been proceeded by an even longer week and I just felt drained by too many things.
   Perhaps my three year old niece using me to unleash her anger on and constantly calling me 'meanie.' And 'You're the dumbest Aunt Christy, ever." over the past two weeks was too much. Even though I'm glad she feels safe and secure enough with me to express her feelings.
   Maybe my frustration over a school system that wants my daughter enrolled there because she can produce strong test scores, and make them look good but they don't really care about her education; had me on edge. 
   Or sometimes, when I have a hundred million emotions running through me; worries and doubts; fear and frustration; missing hero hottie and an inability to fix my loved ones problems; I just have to release my own emotions. 
   I chopped green onions, tears rolling down my cheeks and I wondered how I could ever be strong enough to be not only what everyone else needed from me but to also be myself.
  
    But as Moms, don't we have a habit of trying to take care of everyone first that we are totally drained before we take the time to care for ourselves? We wipe noses, and help with homework, we have long talks about the meaning of life with our little ones, desperately hoping we're teaching them something that will guide them later and we slay monsters under the bed. We learn to cook anyway our kids need us too and we keep our tempers when faced with naughty behaviors.
  
   Hero hottie didn't know what to do for me though. So I thought he did the sweetest thing he possibly could. Yesterday he had Justin come over, since the guy can cook like a professional and with hero hottie acting like a sous chef; they filled the crock pot with dinner. 
   When I was finished babysitting the 'little girls' as I call my nieces, the house was filled with the delicious aroma of an Italian stew or gumbo or whatever Justin had called it.
    I called it wonderful. Dinner; gluten free and hot and ready to serve. Bean and Abu were okay with it. The stew contained chunks of tomatoes in it, which for as much as they like ketchup, pizza sauce, and tomato soup; I can not get them to eat chunks of tomato. But they tried it.
   I loved it. It had a base of fire roasted tomatoes in Italian seasonings, with a yummy mixture of hot Italian sausage, sweet corn and slightly crunchy green beans.
   The best part; it was already cooked!!
  Then hero hottie played card games with Bean and Abu while I took an uninterrupted bath. As a Mom, do you know the percentage of baths I have taken that I wasn't solving problems from the other side of the bathroom door?

   After the girls were in bed, he asked me. "Do you feel better?"
   I nodded. My worries were still there, they weren't just going to go away but I felt better able to handle them. Restored.
   "Yeah, I do. Thank you." I hugged him.
   He smiles. "Good. Because I've been planning that for a few days now since I noticed you were starting to have difficulties." He just had to wait until he was home to pull it off.
   "You've noticed?" I asked, surprised that he knew I was needing some TLC long before I started crying over making tacos.
   He nodded.

   Now that's true love. Not romantic flowers and diamonds; not sappy Hallmark card;

     but just love...simply.