Breakfast

I love food and breakfast food is my favorite. It can be salty, sweet, chewy, drinkable, dippable, fast, slow, gloppy, runny, soft, crunchy and more. I can eat breakfast food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even for a snack. I rarely miss eating breakfast. When I was growing up breakfast was a very hectic time. I don't think that Mom ever sat down during the forty five minutes between when we arrived in the kitchen to when it was time to start walking or catching the bus to school. Mornings at my house typically consisted of Mom knocking on our door between six thirty and seven telling us it was time to get up and then she would flip on the light. I would race to the shower and could be in and out in less than three minutes most days. I was never one to take long showers when I was younger. I had things to do and so it became a race. Jump in get the water just right then wash my hair with the shampoo, usually suave or whatever was on sale, rinse my head grab the bar of soap wash the rest of me then rinse and get out. No one ever really knew which towel was the one they had used the day before because they all were similar so it was grab a towel dry off and wrap it around the body and run back to my room to get dressed. We never took our cloths in the bathroom with us as the next person in line needed to use the shower and that would have meant more time in the bathroom. Back in the room I shared with my two younger brothers, Sam and Matthew, I would put on jeans and a t-shirt. I was very fashion forward at the time and I don't think I ever wore anything else besides jeans and a t-shirt. As I got older I had a collection on white t-shirts that I had either gotten from the 5k's and 10ks that I was running or I would pick up one from the DI or a local store. When I left home to serve a mission I had over thirty white t-shirts hanging in my closet. Dressed with shoes on, I ran downstairs to the kitchen. I would arrive and mom would give a glance and tell me to comb my hair. I would go to the small bathroom next to the dining room hoping to find one but usually I would yell and say, "Mom, I can't find a comb." She would yell back a possible alternative location to locate a brush or she would tell me that Chelle must have it. My older sister always seemed to have the things that I needed. Dad always had a little black comb in his back pocket and he would sometimes pull it out and let us use it or he would help my younger brothers and sisters comb their hair with his comb or a brush that they would bring to him. Once the hair was done I could sit down to eat. Since I was usually one of the first kids down at the table we would pray with dad and mom. The food blessed we could finally eat. When breakfast was cereal the bags and boxes would be on the table. Our family could go through a box of cereal every morning if it was what everyone chose to eat. Mom would place a stack of bowls and cups with a handful of spoons on the side the milk was made the night before using a powdered milk that we all really liked. For a year or two we bought fresh milk from a lady that lived on the other side of town and that was really good because even though mom would take most of the cream off the top there would still be a little left and that made the milk thick and tasty. We grabbed a bowl picked our cereal and filled the bowl. Dad would look up from the newspaper and if we poured too much he would tell us to put some back. On cereal days mom put a sugar bowl on the table and we would add a spoonful of sugar to our cereal. We would sometimes get clever and add the sugar before adding the milk and then with the milk dissolving the sugar it looked like we had not gotten any sugar so we got another spoonful on top. The bonus with that much sugar is that the milk doesn't quite dissolve all of the sugar so once the cereal was eaten we would slurp the milk out of the bowl and then use our spoon to get every last bit of sugar we could from the bottom of the bowl. One thing to note was that we got a morning newspaper every day. Dad would usually get it when he came down and the first thing he read were the comics. If he didn't get the paper and one of us got the paper we got the comics first. When dad was done with the comics all of us wanted to read them and there would be dibs or next yelled out while we were all trying to eat. Mom never got to sit down with us to eat breakfast. She was usually too busy getting our lunches ready or getting the little ones their food. Mom was the referee. She helped keep things in order while we asked her all kinds of things about where our backpacks were or upcoming projects we had or even that we needed a shoe box or some other odd thing for school that day. Mom handled it all very well and even the occasional spill was met with small irritation and a toss of a rag or towel to clean it up. If it was a pancake day dad was usually the one flipping the pancakes and piling them on a plate. On the table we would find peanut butter and jam, fresh and hot Maple syrup (mom always made her own maple syrup) and powdered sugar. Their would be a stack of plates and cups and a handful of forks and the process would proceed again. Prayer would be offered and we would fill our plates with the pancakes. We always wanted the freshest and hottest pancakes and sometimes dad would try to tease us by lifting up the stack of pancakes and putting the freshest ones on the bottom of the pile. The same process was done for french toast. If dad wanted eggs for breakfast he also usually made them. As we would wander in he would ask us how we wanted our eggs cooked. I liked easy over with a runny yoke but the whites nice and firm. Sam would switch a lot have scrambled more often. Chelle and Matthew had easy over like me. As we got older we would be allowed to cook our own eggs but they never turned out as well. The yolks would break when we turned them over and we would be sad. We ate them anyway. Two eggs was what we got and they were enjoyed quickly. One of my favorites was simple toast and hot chocolate. Mom would make the chocolate in a large pan on the stove. She mixed the sugar and cocoa and vanilla right in the pan with the water and the powdered milk. We would grab a mug and use a ladle to scoop out the chocolate. Sometimes we would be responsible for our own toast but most of the time mom was toasting the bread as she was making the lunches. We would sit at the table with our toast and chocolate and then dip the toast into the chocolate and drip and slurp the now soggy toast to our mouths. We could go through a loaf of bread just for the toast. With so many of us we had a limit of two pieces of toast per person but that was enough. We had chocolate drips in a trail from the cup to our mouths. We had drips on our chins and sometimes if we weren't careful we got drips on our cloths. We wiped it off as best we could and continued. Once breakfast was completed dad would gather everyone up, everyone was awake and showered and down stairs by then, we would kneel wherever we could around the piano and into the dining room and kitchen and dad would call on one of us to pray or he or mom would pray. Prayer time was the quietest that the morning ever was. We asked for safety and happiness. We asked for help at school and at home. We thanked Heavenly Father for our rest from the night before. We thanked Heavenly father for our bodies, our family and our home. Some were short prayers and some were longer prayers. Sometimes the neighbor kids would be at our house to walk with us to school and they would participate with us. Sometimes we would hear the bus coming while we prayed and quickly finish so that we could run to catch it. Once the prayer was done we ran off in our various directions. Walking to school, catching a bus, going to work, or staying home. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.