“You want me to what?”
I’m in charge of making breakfast in our household.
I don’t mind. I’m a morning person and my commute to work is pretty short: about 10 paces from the kitchen to my office in the garage. My wife takes advantage to sleep in, read a book or to head out for a walk or to the gym, and then she handles lunch and usually dinner.
The trouble with making breakfast is the children.
They wake up at different times and with little regard for my commute to get to work on time.
At the table, the youngest is the slowest to eat. She looks at her food almost with disdain, seeming not to want to eat even as her elder sister casually consumes and her brother wolfs down his breakfast and then asks for more.
The nine-year-old boy will finish his second helping, then his 11-year-old sister will finish her first and then I will, leaving the six-year-old alone at the table with her largely untouched bowl of porridge or plate of toast.
“Eat your porridge,” I say, trying to coax her to move a filled spoon to her mouth. “It will make you feel better.”
That comment gets her attention, and she looks up at me somewhat puzzled before looking down again at her bowl to ponder the porridge. Then she looks up at me again as if I’ve just told her that 1+1=3 and says, “But it’s not medicine.”
