I’m not sure what mornings looked like at your house growing up, but here’s what a standard weekday began with in mine:

My mom’s alarm would go off, she’d walk into my brothers’ rooms to rouse them, and since my room was in the basement, she’d call down in this singsong voice to wake me (“Aaaaaabby! Time to get uuuuuup!”). My dad left really early, and after about fourth grade my mom decided she could trust us not to kill each other in the mornings, so after waking us up  and packing our lunches she’d head back to bed.

We had cereal for breakfast. Always cereal. When you have a mother with chronic illness, it was enough to ask her to make dinner and prep three lunches, so Cap’n Crunch it was for the mornings. I’d always monitor my brothers as they poured, you know, to make sure they weren’t hogging the Lucky Charms whenever Mom blessed us with a box. And then the three of us would hustle to get our coats and backpacks and make the trek up to the school bus stop.

But then there were the special mornings every so often when I’d wake up and Dad was home, and instead of Crunch Berries, we’d have cream of wheat. Or oatmeal with raisins in it. Or scrambled eggs and bacon. Something different than our usual cold cereal and milk. And those days? Those days were the best. I don’t know why having a hot cereal instead of cold made such a difference, but it did, and I will never forget those mornings.

These days, since I obviously don’t live with my parents any more, I can do whatever I want for breakfast. Most days I resort to Oh’s or Mini Wheats but every so often, like this morning, I rifle through the cabinets until I find that comforting red box of Cream of Wheat. And it brings me back to those mornings as a kid when my parents went the extra mile, forewent an hour of precious sleep, to give us an unexpected treat.

Cheers to simpler times, my friends :).