Mom Life

At 7:45 this morning, I had been up for two hours, had two cups of coffee, and was feeling as if some breakfast might be advisable. I also felt that I might as well go all out and make bacon along with the inevitable egg. You know, in celebration of a lazy Saturday morning.

Except "children" and "lazy mornings" don't really go together, and I do have three of those children things.

Said children had already eaten some oatmeal, but I charitably offered to make bacon and eggs for them, too. When I asked who wanted some before I started cooking, Jack said he wanted bacon, Charlie said he didn't want anything, and Cubby said no, thanks, he had to go poop.

Okay. The "no, thanks" would have been enough for me.

So I started cooking four pieces of bacon. One for Jack, one for me, two for A. whenever he got up.

When the bacon was done, I gave Jack his piece and made myself an egg. Charlie wandered into the kitchen requesting bacon. I gave him a piece.

When my egg was done, I sat down at the table with my plate of egg and bacon. I had taken one bite of egg before Jack made it clear that actually, he wanted an egg too.

So I put another egg in the pan and gave him the one I had started eating, since it was already cooling down.

My egg in the pan was almost done when Charlie came back into the kitchen requesting more bacon. Nope, I said. If you're still hungry, you can have an egg. Okay, said Charlie.

So I gave him my egg. And put another in the pan for me.

Cubby came out of the bathroom and, anticipating further requests for food, I yelled down to him that if he wanted to eat, he'd better come up and eat now because I was almost done cooking. Okay, said Cubby. I GUESS I can eat something.

So he got a piece of bacon and the egg from the pan.

Notice I didn't say my egg from the pan. It was pretty clear at this point that as long as the locusts were in the kitchen, nothing in that pan was going to be mine.

Jack finished his egg and asked for another. So I made him another. He got through about one bite of that before throwing his fork and starting to spit out bites of egg, in addition to whining and generally exhibiting classic I Need a Nap behavior.

I decided it would be best to wait until that nap before I attempted my own breakfast again.

It only took me one hour, four eggs, three pieces of bacon, three cups of milk, and one chapter from the Narnia book (read to keep Cubby and Charlie from shrieking and keeping Jack from falling asleep), but I FINALLY had my breakfast. And because A. had awakened, I used the sole remaining piece of bacon, plus some cheese and leftover vegetables, to make an omelet for the two of us.

So in the end, my breakfast ended up being better than I had originally planned.

The best things in life are worth waiting for, right? Right.