Breakfast time can be a good time for chewing and digesting. Chewing on what mom gives you and digesting the topic of the day. Today there were two topics. The first was whether or not Big Bird was a girl or a boy. Jane said girl, Charles said boy. Alex, our six year old, insisted that there was no way to actually tell with Big, however Snuffy was a boy for sure.

From here we progressed to a topic dear to their hearts, and that is why we never get Fruit Loops or Sugar Crisp for breakfast. Everybody else (that is everybody on the TV commercials which, as a major part of our children’s world, is everybody else) eats them. This is an old question, asked about once a week, and I delivered the same old answer as I delivered the same old bowl of porridge.

Alex gobbled his eat-it-because-it-is-nutritious breakfast and raced off  to catch the morning TV. I could hear the audience of six and seven year olds responding enthusiastically to their cues from the game show that was playing. I know that Duck Tales, his favorite show was coming up next and since he is allowed only one program in the morning I considered advising him to turn the first show off. However Stanley, his three-month-old brother who was beside me in his bounce chair, was yelling so hard that the advice would never be heard. Stanley was yelling because Eddie was being nursed. Eddie was getting fed because he happened to be yelling louder than Stanley at the time (my method of deciding who gets it first).

Our three year old, Jane who was just finishing her breakfast, suddenly gave an unholy “burp!” looked up in horror and said “I’m going to throw up!”

There is nothing like those five words to galvanize a parent into action. The nearest thing, which happened to be her brother Charles’s almost empty bowl of porridge, was quickly pushed under her nose.

“Hey! That’s my bowl!” was the immediate and indignant reaction from her brother.

“Yuck. I can’t use that it’s dirrrrrty.”

“Gimme back my bowl!”

Baby still clutched to my breast, I rushed to the cupboard and grabbed a stainless steel bowl that I thought might work, and gave it to Jane, who discovered there were actually two bowls stuck together. A small diversion, but it was enough to make her forget about her stomach for the moment.

Charles asked to watch TV. “Sure” I said (rules verses sanity).

Stanley, momentarily quiet, resumed his howling with gusto. Looking over, I noticed he was now sporting a steel bowl on his head. Jane and Charles had disappeared and so, it seemed, had Jane’s momentary digestive distress.

I looked down at my bowl of cold porridge, then I looked at Eddie, still gnawing away. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, then leaned over and gently adjusted the bowl on howling Stanley’s head so that it rode at a cocky angle.

Just another Thursday in the house.