By Sarah Hauser
@sarah.j.hauser

My husband, Colson, and I putter around the family room. He’s looking at the cabinet doors on the built-ins, trying to measure exactly where the new knobs have to go. I’m picking up Hot Wheels cars and tossing plastic baby toys into a bin. As we work, we’re bickering. About what? I can’t quite remember. Maybe about how the cabinet knobs need to move down a few inches or what our plans are for the rest of the evening or how I’m overwhelmed by the 800 little tasks I have to complete during hours that don’t seem to exist. He’s trying to calm me down, reminding me not to catastrophize; I’m resenting his assertion that that’s what I’m doing. (I am, though. I know this.)

The Big Three, as we call our two seven-year-olds and our five-year-old, are downstairs playing video games. It’s a Sunday afternoon, and they’re embracing their extra weekend screen time. The baby is with me, crawling between my legs and dumping the toys I’ve just tossed in the bin next to me. I shake my head at the mess being made before my eyes. Why do I even bother?

My husband walks out of the room for a second to grab his drill for the cabinet doors. Suddenly, “COLSON!!!!!!” I yell. “Grab your phone!” I don’t have my phone on me, a Sabbath afternoon habit I’m trying to implement. But right now, I’m annoyed that I can't remember where I set it. 

“What’s going on?” he calls back, nearly breaking into a jog as he races back into the family room. 

“Sam took a couple steps!”

I run up to my room and find my phone on my nightstand. When I return, our arguing has stopped, the cleaning and chores set aside. I sweep a few toys toward the walls with my hands, making a path for our one-year-old to walk. “He did it! He took a couple steps. For real this time!” I report. Our youngest has been teasing us up until now, taking half steps here and there, but not enough for me to say that he’s officially walking. 

I take no less than eight different videos, and we sit around our baby boy clapping enthusiastically and grinning as if this was the first time with the first kid. He’s our fourth, likely our last, but this part doesn’t get old—the anticipation and the excitement and the unabashed look of pride plastered across the face of our son.

“Hey guys! Come on upstairs! Sam’s walking!” I call down the stairs to the other three. Sam stands up and takes a few more steps forward, looking like a drunken sailor on choppy seas. The dog comes bounding up the stairs to check out the excitement, followed by the stomping of feet of the Big Three. They stand around Sam, clapping and cheering as giddily as their parents. None of us can help but smile, including Sam who keeps falling on his butt but then claps for himself when he realizes the reaction his performance elicits from the rest of us. 

I sit there on the floor watching my baby boy walk—toys strewn around, dog hair clinging to my yoga pants, chores still undone, marital arguments still unsettled.

 “Are we going to have a party?” my five-year-old asks, “Like we did with Puppy Lovey?” 

***

A year or so earlier, one of my kids had lost his stuffed animal lovey he’s had since he was a newborn. While I didn’t necessarily miss the snot and dirt and grime I was constantly washing off Puppy Lovey (yes, that’s his actual name), he almost seemed like a part of this family. Being lost was sad for all of us. 

After a couple weeks, when we realized Puppy Lovey was truly gone, I bought my son a new one, the same exact version but of course not quite as good. The new one was softer, but hadn’t yet achieved the coveted status of having his fur worn off with love and his ears frayed from being carried around everywhere my son went.

Months later, when Colson was cleaning out a bin in the basement, I heard him yell. “HEY! EVERYONE! Guess what?” For my normally very even-keeled husband, his yelling enthusiastically from the basement surprised me.

“I FOUND PUPPY LOVEY!”

“What?” I ran down the stairs, past the washer and dryer, and into the back room where we kept tools and paint and seasonal decor. Colson held up the raggedy animal. I grinned, my eyes wide in disbelief, my heart feeling as though it grew three sizes. I almost cried. It sounds so dumb, but it’s true. My sweet boy had missed his favorite stuffed animal for months, and now it was here, it was found (and also very dirty). The kids came running, my son’s eyes grew red and watery with tears of happiness. He grabbed his lost friend and held him tight. “This calls for a dinner out!” Colson declared. 

And so we climbed in the van, Puppy Lovey, too, and drove to pick up hot dogs and hamburgers and my kids’ favorite cheese fries. Nothing fancy, just fast-food takeout. But finding this beloved little toy deserved a moment of celebration, a few minutes of sharing joy, gratitude, and excitement together as a family. 

***

Our one-year-old continues taking steps and falling, taking steps and falling. I’ve caught plenty on camera for the grandparents, and I start texting the family. Sam’s reaction to himself is my favorite—just pure, unadulterated joy. I can’t stop grinning as I type, He finally walked! 

The kids are still waiting to hear the answer to the dinner question. I pause and consider the request. “I don’t think we’ll go out to dinner,” I tell my son, not because I don’t want to, but because I just dropped way too much money at Costco, and, well, maybe you know how that goes. “But you know what? We’ll definitely still celebrate somehow.”

Sam starts to whine a little bit, and I can tell he’s getting tired from his new mode of transportation. I pick him up and carry him to his high chair. I clip on the tray and dump a handful of Cheerios in front of him. My husband retrieves the drill to get back to work, the big kids wander back downstairs to play a game, and life seems to return to the way it was. 

Except it’s different. We’re all a little lighter, all a little happier, all a little changed by having something to celebrate on this otherwise very ordinary Sunday. 

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
Makes 16-18 standard-sized cupcakes

This recipe is sort of the cake version of chocolate chip cookies—buttery, decadent, made with brown sugar and vanilla, and studded with melty, smooth, semi-sweet chocolate.

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour*
2½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¾ cup milk, at room temperature
1-1 ½ cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips**

Frosting of choice (such as this Vanilla Buttercream or your favorite store bought frosting)
Crushed chocolate chip cookies for topping (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cupcake pan or use cupcake liners. With an electric mixer, beat the butter for about a minute. Then add the sugar and cream together with the butter for another 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then add in the vanilla, scraping the bowl as needed.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients to the egg and sugar mixture, a little bit at a time, alternating with the milk. Stir just until combined, being careful not to overmix. With a spatula, carefully fold in about a cup of the chocolate chips.

Pour the cupcake batter into the prepared cupcake pan, filling each section about 2/3 full. Add a couple chocolate chips to the top of each cupcake. Bake for about 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Let the cupcakes cool completely, and then top with your favorite frosting, crushed chocolate chip cookies, and a few more chocolate chips. Enjoy!

NOTES: 

* If you don’t have cake flour, you can improvise with this cake flour substitute that uses cornstarch and all purpose flour.

** To keep the chocolate chips from sinking, it helps to coat the chips with a little bit of flour before adding them to the batter. Using mini chocolate chips can also help, or just roughly chop larger chocolate pieces.

Words and photos by Sarah J. Hauser.

Sarah is a writer and speaker living in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and four kids. Through theology, stories, and the occasional recipe, she helps others find nourishment for their soul. She loves cooking but rarely follows a recipe exactly, and you can almost always find her with a cup of coffee in hand. Her first book, All Who Are Weary: Finding True Rest by Letting Go of the Burdens You Were Never Meant to Carry (Moody) releases in April, 2023. Check out her monthly newsletter or find her on Instagram.