
Grilled Shrimp Salad
Esme used to say that she wanted to be a chef or a doctor. And Ben and I would always tell her that those were skill sets we’d be happy to integrate into the family. But lately she’s change her mind. The last few times we’ve talked about her career goals she’s told me she wants to be a Mummy. And yes, the first few times she said it I actually teared up. I’m not a cryer, but how sweet is that? Naturally my ego jumped straight to the conclusion that it’s her four year old way of telling me that she admires me. That she notices what I do and appreciates it and thinks motherhood is an important job. Right? Yeah, not so much, as it turns out.
On our way to school recently she was asking me about her other recent obsession: judges. What do judges do? How do they decide who goes to jail? How bad do you have to be to go to jail? She listened thoughtfully to my answers and said, “I don’t want to be a judge. That sounds really hard.” I agreed that being a judge would be an enormous responsibility and it wouldn’t appeal to me as a job either. Again she told me she’d rather be a Mom. I reminded her that being a mother is also a hard job. She turned to and said, “Yeah, but like, being a judge is this hard.” Arms spread wide for emphasis “And being a Mummy is like this.” Hands held very close together. Very close. So it’s not so much that she wants to be a mother to be like me but because she thinks it’s easy! I don’t mind telling you I got a bit huffy.
Moving on.
We had Laura and Scarlett over for dinner the other evening and I wanted something, yep, you guessed — easy. I knew I had a busy day and I didn’t want to be fussing around with something complicated. I like grilling but I’m not a fan of eating a ton of red meat, so I like meals like this that are grill alternatives to a big steak. Once you’ve cleaned your shrimp, which is the only fussy thing here, this salad comes together quickly. I split a shrimp with Esme when they came off the grill — just to test the seasoning. Also we couldn’t resist, they looked so good. As soon as put in my mouth, I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Oh. My. God. So good.” Esme popped her half in her mouth and shouted, “Oh. My. God. So good.” Okay, so maybe she copies me just a little sometimes. And she’s no longer grounded.
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