Breakfast of Champions

When it comes to breakfast, I happen to agree with the experts that it is the most important meal of the day. Personally, I can't survive without breakfast. Perhaps it's how I was trained growing up, perhaps it's my chemical composition. Either way, I have to eat breakfast every single morning. My whole life, I have been able to miss any other meal or snack during the day, but if I miss breakfast, I'm totally messed up for the entire day and maybe the next, too. Plenty of people in the world do not eat breakfast and survive (often with a few extra pounds around their waistline), but I am not one of them.

To put it lightly, getting VV to eat anything, let alone eating breakfast, has been a challenge. Being nearly four years old, of course she has been exposed to plenty of "junk" food. There is no doubt she would eat chips, popcicles, cookies or candy until someone intervened. Put a sandwich or bowl of vegetables in front of that kid, even if she had been starving for a month, she wouldn't touch the stuff.

I make breakfast for the kids nearly every morning. I'll cook or provide anything they request, time permitting, just to encourage the first meal of the day. Without breakfast, the experts conclude that it is tougher for children to concentrate and to learn at school. Lately, the popular breakfast of choice has been Pop-Tarts. One day, VV exclaimed, "Mommy, Pop-Tarts are good for me because they have lots of protein." Yeah, 2 grams! I'll be sure to include that information in my letter to Kellogg's. So, I responded, "I don't think so honey, but I'm glad to see you're eating breakfast." Why press the issue? Pop-Tarts may not be the most nutritious breakfast, but at least they help to develop a habit of eating breakfast. I admit that I will probably regret the availability of Pop-Tarts in my house in about 20 years.

Beyond acting as a breakfast short-order cook (the only meal for which I'm willing to do this) I also provide incentives for completing the task. I've been known to offer coins or stickers as a reward for a reasonably consumed breakfast. Yesterday, VV ate one Pop-Tart and a small bowl of Life Cereal in addition to her usual milk, Flintstone vitamins and apple juice. As a reward, VV chose two stickers, one for herself & one for her little sister who doesn't need incentives for breakfast consumption. This was the best breakfast she's eaten in months, if not years, if not EVER.

Cut to this morning.... VV opted for Pop-Tarts again, vitamins, milk, apple juice & Frosted Flakes Frosted Flakes. To be generous, she probably ate four bites of her Pop-Tart, finished her juice, milk and vitamins, and stared at the Frosted Flakes. As I ate my own breakfast, Valerie asked for her reward.

Valerie: Mommy, I want my sticker now.
Me: Well, I can't give you a sticker unless you finish your breakfast
Valerie: I ate my breakfast yesterday! (stated emphatically)
Me: That was yesterday. At night you hit the reset button and each morning you start over.
Valerie: (Defeated) Sigh... okay..... Then, I'm finished.

If I didn't have my wits about me, I just may have fallen for the fact that she ate her breakfast yesterday. She has this air about her that keeps people giving her what she wants. She can be perfectly charming and turn on you in a second when she doesn't get her way.

My own mother has been known to recite the following nursery rhyme by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in my honor,

There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good she was very very good
And when she was bad she was horrid

I'd say the same applies to my darling eldest daughter!