Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. Andrew Lipstein lives a double life. His latest, Something Rotten , touches on similar themes, this time tracking a journalist couple as they escape to Denmark, eager to leave their fraught New York life behind. Liver pate, a Scandinavian staple, has become a fairly regular part of their diet.
I try to accommodate their preferences โ they each take their eggs in slightly different ways. Something funny or devastating about parenthood is that basically every thought you have about it has been thought millions of times before. But we do have so many fucking mouths to feed. For this reason I often bring Tupperware to the office I have to go in three days a week and take home leftover lunch to serve the boys for dinner, alongside accoutrements we keep on hand.
Mette is Danish, and to make language as confusing as possible for our sons we just inject Danish nouns and verbs into otherwise English sentences. For this reason I suspect one will become a sort of rural do-gooder, while the other is destined to be a ruthless magnate โ a captain of industry, even. Mette and I are able to get a last-minute babysitter for a party, hosted by the filmmaking duo Niclas Larsson and Carla Luffe.
The wine is outrageously good โ creamy, with a high salinity. Niclas has procured fresh oysters, which are shucked on the spot. The crowd is mostly film and fashion folks, and I love talking to nearly all of them. I love parties โ too much, I think. Mette does a good, sort of abstract impression of me meeting new people; it involves juggling. After our normal breakfast routine โ Quest bar, coffee, eggs โ Mette meets a friend and takes our toddler, giving me time with the twins.
When we just had one kid, we could each have some hours to ourselves on weekends. Now, taking the twins is the new time alone. For lunch I have Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and various jams. I believe with all of my heart in a high-protein, low-carb diet. In the afternoon, Mette works out and I watch all three kids. This can be a lot of fun, but it also involves continually trying to convince our toddler not to make decisions that will lead to harm for himself or others.
