Breakfast time

Of all the meals, I associate my kids’ childhood most with breakfast. It carries a weight of reminiscence in the way that lunch or dinner, doesn’t quite. Maybe it’s because my kids eat lunch in daycare, so I don’t have much insight into what happens during that meal, and our dinners are usually pretty manic, depending on who’s cooking, who’s home and the level of rejection of that evening’s meal.

But breakfasts … they’re calmer, and somehow more intimate, as we’re all trying, together, to slough off the weight of sleep (or the lack thereof) and reconnect in the new day. And breakfasts tend to be more stable and dependable than the other meals. The days tend to unfold and branch off into a hundred different directions, but they all start pretty similarly - with a bowl of oatmeal, or cream of wheat, or cereal.

I think it’s that sense of stability that’s caused breakfast time, and its adjacent activities, to stick out in my mind as a kind of ritual, worthy of documentation. Maybe it changes over time, in response to kids’ school schedules or parents’ working responsibilities. But before it does, let your kid know how their days start. Who wakes them up, and at what time? Are they easy to rise, or reluctant? What are the routine breakfast offerings, and what’s reserved for special occasions? Do they have a favorite? What are their other breakfast-adjacent activities, and what’s the morning vibe like as your kid gets ready for school?