In my dreams, I am a mom that has lovingly prepared 3 meals and couple of snacks each day for the troops. In reality, cooking is annoying. I don’t mind it every so often, but the everyday drudgery of “WHAT are we going to eat?” is the biggest frustration. Sanj always says, “I don’t know!” The boys would pick different things but usually ordering out is the option of choice.
But until I get that Lil’ Indian man that is going to do all my cooking, cleaning, laundry etc… (this is a running joke… getting my live in domestic assistant) I am left with figuring out the menu and getting meals on the table.
One thing I absolutely hate is cutting up fruit. I am not sure what the aversion is but I truly dislike it. My kids goggle up the fruit. So once I cut it, it doesn’t even last for me to enjoy looking at it.
I made dinner last night. Then I painstakingly cut up 4-5 mangoes. My kids were delighted. It was gone in moments.
That was my gift of love to the family.
My dad would buy boxes of mangoes when in season. Then he would stand there and cut the mangoes into bite size pieces. They were cut the same size. He would put them in bowls and bring it to us. We loved this treat. I don’t think I ever thought of it as a treat, but rather took it for-granted.
As I stood there yesterday, cutting up the mangoes, not caring about whether the were bite size pieces or not, I thought of my dad. This must have been a gesture of love.