Sunday Morning Breakfast

Sunday Morning Breakfast

My husband came into the kitchen and opened the window above the sink. He closed the cupboard doors, put my melting stick of butter on a plate, and tapped the volume down on my laptop, which was blaring the novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

“Daddy cooks a little different from Mommy,” he said to our daughter, who was in her highchair eating toast.

I said, “I’m just making pancakes.”

“Exactly.” One eyebrow raised, he looked at the messy kitchen.

“Don’t be so pious!”

“Pious!” He laughed. “I’m just trying to keep us from getting smoke inhalation!”

I flipped a pancake and slathered more butter on the pan. Smoke billowed and was sucked out of the open window by the wind.

“Maybe you should open the French doors, too?” I said.

He nodded and opened them, too.

I stopped the audiobook and turned on The Casades. “I like this song,” I said, shimmying in front of the stove.

My husband smiled. “I can tell.”

After breakfast, he blew on his arms and looked at the open windows. “I’m burning up.”

“Don’t turn on the air conditioning!” I cried. “I want to hear the storm rolling in!”

So my husband turned on the fans.

I cleaned up the kitchen, and my husband put our daughter down for a nap. Fifteen minutes later, that big mountain man tiptoed out of her nursery and crooked his finger at me. “Honey, c’mere,” he whispered.

Draping the washcloth over the sink, I walked down the hallway and my husband pushed open the nursery door. Side by side, we padded across the carpet and stood beside her crib.

Our daughter’s satin-edged blanket was bunched beneath her stomach, making her diapered bottom jut in the air. She was sucking her thumb — round cheeks moving — and, for a long moment, we just listened to her breathe and then smiled at each other, our eyes gleaming.

My husband and I may be opposites in our thermostat preferences and the way we cook in the kitchen. But one thing’s exactly the same: we could spend all day just watching our child sleep.

Are you and your spouse opposites or more one and the same? Share a story!

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