Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 small-medium leeks, halved and sliced*
1 cup onion, diced
3/4 cup uncooked pearled barley
2 cups carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1 cup cabbage, chopped into bite-size pieces
5 cups water or broth (we added two vegetarian bouillon cubes diluted in a quarter cup of boiling water to this measurement)
1 bay leaf
28 ounces diced/stewed tomatoes, undrained keep reading »

Manfriend and I have been idly discussing the eventual possibility of children. Every few years, we have this conversation, and every few years it evolves to a slightly more fucked up place.

“I just want one,” he tells me, like that somehow is more persuasive than saying “I want eighty.”

Parenthood is not defined by how many children you have, so much as the fact that you have children. One or fifteen, it doesn’t matter. You’re already a broken shell of a person. After one kid, what does it matter how many more you have?

“What if we have twins?” I asked, as I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush.
“We’ll throw one of them off a cliff,” he replied sarcastically from the bedroom.
“Oh, I get it. You want to ensure that we always hold the majority votes.”

Inexplicably, he found that hilarious.

“So if we have a kid, you realize that one day this conversation will come up, right?” I studied him gravely. “You had a twin, but daddy only wanted one child.”