Tick-tick-tick

Here’s the basic problem with the kids, especially in the mornings: no sense of urgency. Their parents are type-A, on-the-go, git-er-done, MBA types. In the morning the kids have the urgency of clinically depressed tree sloths on a hot day.

They wake up when they want; it takes an age for them to even start breakfast in the morning; getting dressed is a fight. Even worse, they always want to distract themselves with television. Don’t they understand we have places we need to be? We are going to BE LATE TO SAFETY TOWN! You can’t be LATE TO SAFETY TOWN!

We have this thing with oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of the few foods we can convince the kids to eat in the morning, mostly because by the time the kids are through with it, it’s packed with more sugar than a Kit-Kat. First we use the maple and brown sugar variety. Then, the kids add sprinkles (at least two kinds, but not the two you first pick out of the cupboard) and chocolate chips. This is my law of parenting precedent: if you ever agree, even once, to put a topping on oatmeal, you’ll be doing it for the rest of your blessed life.

Basically, with the toppings and the baked-in brown sugar, we’ve taken a natural, wholesome and fulfilling meal and turned it into the equivalent of Krispy Kreme. That goodly Quaker on the front looks down with his benign smile, but frankly he’d be terrified the mockery we’ve made of the oats he worked so diligently to gather (no doubt on horse and buggy).

The sprinkles aren’t the half of it. Oatmeal must, without exception, be served in the correct bowl – pink for Chiara, blue for Cody. It must have the exact right water content: Chiara likes hers very thick, Cody likes his soupy. It’s good that Cody likes it soupy, because he always wants to “help” pour – the result is an oatmeal swill that I don’t think I could stomach.

Finally, the oatmeal must be within a temperature band approximately the width of a human hair. This requirement is especially rich, since as I alluded to earlier, the kids are typically lollygagging on the couch while the oatmeal is at the proper warmth. We then reheat it and it is scalding; distracted by cartoons it then gets too cold again. Repeat ad infinitum - remember, you have to get all this perfectly right; not getting it right could result in a chocolate-maple-sprinkley-oatmealy stain on the kitchen rug.

And that’s just eating. Although they are fed, the kids are still in their jammies with messy hair and un-brushed teeth. Maybe in a future post I’ll cover these ridiculously time-consuming steps. Meanwhile, I gotta go. The minutes until Safety Town are ticking away!