Pancakes

One year ago

I was walking down the stairs with Ari in my arms when I smelled something good. I made my towards the kitchen wondering about giving Romero, our chef, a pay raise if his pancakes are as tasty as they smelled. Ari was just as excited as me to see what we were going to have for breakfast. His speech still wasn't perfect enough to tell me that but his body was leaning away from my arms and towards the kitchen.

Therefore, I was absolutely flabbergasted to find my husband in an apron in the kitchen. Nothing in the world would have prepared me for this. 'What the heck? He can cook?'

Once Ari saw his father, he wanted to run towards him and I wasn't paying enough attention to him to understand that he wanted me to put him down.

"Dada..", Ari cried out. It brought me out of my daze and Miraj turned around to look at us.

"Hey! Good Morning!", said Miraj and walked towards us in all his apron wearing, pancake cooking glory. 'Who is this man?', I thought.

Miraj took Ari from me and helped him sit on the kitchen counter, away from the stove. I was still standing there and contemplating where my gun-wielding, paper signing husband was. Because this man was a full-blown cook. I could tell from the way his pancakes looked and smelled, that they were delicious. The things that he was using around him looked systematically placed. Not like when you cook for the first time.

Don't get me wrong, Miraj was a good mob boss and an even better father but he wasn't someone you would imagine cooking. He could have been a thousand things in his free time but being a cook wasn't something I would think of in a hundred years, even with his Italian lineage. He had an air about him that made him seem like he would see cooking as a woman's job. And yet, he looked delicious in an apron. 'God! Why is my husband so hot?'

"Could you come here and hold him for me so he doesn't fall while I am cooking?"

I nodded absentmindedly and walked towards Ari.

That morning we had blueberry pancakes and even though I will never admit it out loud, they were the best blueberry pancakes I had ever had.

Ari was so crazy for them that he asked Miraj for them every morning for a week. I am not gonna lie but I was jealous of the way Ari was fan-girling over Miraj. I hated it. Ari did everything to get Miraj to cook for him again from random but adorably sweet hugs and kisses to snugly naps with his father. He used his childishness to bribe my husband into making pancakes on alternative days. I am ashamed to say, it was more jealousy than the mom in me, that wouldn't allow daily pancake breakfast. It was all...

"Dada, if I give you 10 kishes, will you make me panshakes tomorrow?"

"Dada, can you make panshakes in the morning? I promise I will love you forever if you make me panshakes again."

"Dada, I want you to make panshakes! I will give you ten hugs if you give me ten panshakes."

He couldn't even say 'pancake', for God's sake! My son was playing favorites and I wasn't going to have it. So I decided to learn to cook better pancakes than my husband could make. It took me a month of evening classes from three top chefs before I mastered the art of pancake making. Once I learned running, it wasn't long before my husband was left behind in the bleachers.

The only saving grace he had was that he could cook other things unlike me. My culinary skills were limited to pancakes and PBJ sandwiches.