Breakfast, with Children

Have you seen the new book You Have to F****** Eat?  I was already a fan of Adam Mansbach's based on his first tome, Go the F*** to Sleep, but this new literary canon is running a close second.  Why?  Because it's not until one has children that she truly appreciates the beauty of a hot, freshly prepared meal enjoyed at a leisurely speed.  Once you're saddled with a kid, all mealtime bets are off.  You want a piping hot plate of scrambled eggs and some fresh toast with jam?  I suggest you hire a babysitter, go out to eat, and enjoy the most expensive breakfast of your life.  Because the next time you get to enjoy some sort of hot breakfast will be when your kids are in college.

Breakfast pre-kids:
You pour yourself a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee and enjoy it from the comfort of your bed while catching up on world events.

After showering and pouring yourself a second cup of delicious java, you make yourself a mouthwatering breakfast of farm fresh eggs, smoked salmon on toast, and an organic fruit salad.  You catch up on email while eating your breakfast at a relaxed pace.

After breakfast you take the time to wash your plate before heading off to work.

Breakfast, with children:
You pour yourself a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee and enjoy one sip before your child starts demanding to be fed.  

You prepare your child a beautiful plate of scrambled eggs, seasoned with a touch of sea salt.  When you present this meal to your child, he screams "no" at the top of his lungs and either throws the plate on the floor or at you.  You cry actual tears because you would kill for a hot breakfast.  Served on a plate.

You microwave your now cold coffee.

You offer your child yogurt instead.  Initially, he says yes.  When presented with a bowl of yogurt with a touch of honey and some fresh, organic berries, your child screams "no berry!" and then he empties the bowl of yogurt onto the table and proceeds to smear it around with his hands.  You cry actual tears because that was the last of the yogurt and now you'll have to spend some of your precious free time going food shopping.

You spend five minutes looking for your coffee before finally remembering you never took it out of the microwave.

You throw a frozen waffle in the toaster and hope that you can convince your kid it tastes delicious without syrup.  When presented with the waffle your kid immediately demands syrup.  You cave in and allow your child to have some syrup to buy yourself enough time to reheat your coffee.

You microwave your coffee.  Again.

While you are in the kitchen microwaving your coffee, your child decides he doesn't need no stinkin' waffle and starts drinking syrup directly from the bottle.  When you catch him doing this and you take the syrup away from him he throws a fit and refuses to eat any more breakfast.  You take him out of his highchair and attempt to wipe the syrup off of his hands before he uses your couch as a napkin.

You have a headache.  Maybe because you've been unable to ingest more than three sips of coffee.  Your coffee is cold again, but you can't let your child play in the other room unattended while you microwave the same stale cup of java.  You throw a few ice cubes in the cup and decide iced coffee is better than no coffee.

After five minutes of playing your kid tells you he's hungry.  Probably because he didn't eat any f*** breakfast.  You follow your kid to the kitchen.  When he gets there, he opens the refrigerator door, pulls out the meatballs from last night's dinner and says he "wants that".  You can't understand why someone would want meatballs at 7:30am, but you're just glad he picked something with protein.  You microwave a meatball for him.  You also throw a slice of toast in the toaster for yourself.

You spend another two minutes looking for your coffee before remembering it's in the other room.

Your kid sits down at the table and you give him his meatball.  You spread butter and jam on your toast before going to retrieve your coffee.

All the ice in your coffee has melted and it's now coffee water.  You pray there's still enough caffeine in there to get rid of your headache.

You sit down at the table where your child is eating his meatball.  You bite into your toast.  It's no longer very warm, but you're just happy to be sitting down and eating something.  Your child notices that you are eating toast and now that is all he wants.  He says "I want that!" several times before you hand over your toast just to get him to shut up.  You cry actual tears because you are drinking cold, watery coffee and you only got one bite of your breakfast.  You reassure yourself that you will be able to enjoy a quiet meal and a hot cup of coffee when your kid goes down for his nap.

You just have to survive lunch time first.