When Your 4 Year Old Finds Your Chef’s Sharpie

Chefs and Sharpies…two words that go hand in hand.

Rarely will you find a chef without a Sharpie in their pocket, or at least near by.

I get it.  They label things all the time and ask us to do the same at home, right????

Leaving Sharpies around the house and car isn’t that big of a deal unless one goes through the wash and the cap falls off (UGH!!!) or unless you have small children!

Our kids (12, 8 and 7) think a black sharpie is just like a regular washable Crayola black marker.  I’m constantly scrubbing it off the table in our office and reminding them to please, JUST USE A REGULAR MARKER!

Anyways…

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Chef Wives, You Are Not a Single Parent

I wrote the post below back in July, but never published it. Tonight I’m sitting on the bed, wishing my husband was home with us. It’s Cinco de Mayo – the busiest night of the year for his restaurants. We haven’t seen him all week and we miss him. I’m tired. The kids have been arguing while making Mother’s Day cards. (Really?????? I don’t want have to discipline for that!! Ugh!! I really wish he were here to deal with the Mother’s Day card arguing…)

Have you ever referred to yourself as a single parent because of your husband’s career as a chef?

They work a ton of hours.  They are gone the majority if not all of the hours the kids are awake. Because of this, the parenting on the days they work (and sometimes even on their days off) falls on us.

It’s hard.

I get it.

I’m living it.

There are many days our girls do not see my husband because he leaves before or just as they are getting up and gets home just after they are in bed. Having a 1 hour + commute on top of the long hours of a chef is tough. My husband would have to leave work at 5 pm (and then sit in the car for 2 hours because of traffic) to be home to see them for an hour before they go to bed (which is not their best time of day). The mornings, it’s the same. If he doesn’t leave before 6 am, the commute can be almost 2 hours long. There’s really no option for a change of hours, so we find way to work with the schedule the best we can.

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