Coffee as Relationship Building

This is a bit I wrote almost three years ago. I've just unearthed it and offer it here for your amusement.

Every weekday morning, I get myself cleaned up and wake Noah. Quietly, gently, so as to have a quieter, gentler morning. I talk him into consciousness and love on him and consistently as him one question:

Are you going to be my helper this morning?

Now, sometimes that might mean, Are you going to make good and appropriate choices and make the morning easier rather than harder. But for us, it means something a bit more specific.

When he agrees - and he almost always agrees, because he likes doing these things and spending this little alone time with me - we cuddle our way downstairs, and I put him on the kitchen counter. I assemble the espresso machine, fill the reservoir about halfway, and I ask him:

Are you going to turn it on?

And he pushes the button to heat the water and whatever other mysterious elements are inside.

Thank you, Noah!

Sometimes he sips on a glass of cranberry juice while we’re talking and slowly turning little lights on around the kitchen.

I pour some coffee beans into our grinder, and he turns the knob to grind them until they’re all done.

Thank you, Noah!

I put the grounds into the filter and attach it to the brew head.

Are you going to put the cup down?

He does.

Thank you, Noah!

We brew the espresso. I smell it. He smells it (mmm!).

We move over to another part of the kitchen, where we make Rebekah’s bottles (Noah assembles and installs the lids), label and put them in a cooler (Noah puts ice packs in the cooler), make mom’s lunch (Noah holds snack baggies open while I put in celery, carrots, maybe peppers), and then retreat back upstairs, far more awake, to get dressed and begin to wake Sarah.