Pretty much every Saturday for as long as I can remember I have made pancakes (or occasionally waffles) for breakfast. Natalie loves them and basically could eat them every day. Usually there are enough pancakes left over to last a couple days into the next week, at least for Natalie. This past Saturday, however, the deviant dog ate about 8 pancakes off the cooling rack on the counter when no one was paying attention. She would have eaten them all except that she couldn’t reach them all. The remaining 4 pancakes didn’t last very long into the next week since they were eaten on Sunday, the next day.
Seeing that Natalie must be going through pancake withdrawal by now, I made pancakes this morning, despite knowing that it would make the morning a little more hectic. Plus I was tired from the dog waking us up at 4:26 a.m. (a whole hour and 24 minutes later than the previous night, but I digress!) I had the kids go get dressed first so as to not waste the time waiting for the food to be ready. When they came back down to the kitchen it was “perfect timing” as Cale announced because I had their plates ready and had even cut up strawberries to go with the pancakes.
I poured on the syrup and Natalie asks “Can I have whipped cream?” Without really thinking, my first reaction was to say “No, you don’t really need whipped cream, do you?” giving the lame, pathetic, and lazy excuse that the can of whipped cream was buried in the back of the fridge (which it really was) and I didn’t want to get it out. To which she replied matter of factly, “If we had guests over, we would have whipped cream.”
Wow. Not what I was expecting her to say, but true. She was right. Why is that? Do I want to impress others? Probably. Do others sometimes express more appreciation than my own family? Sometimes, yes. But don’t I also neglect to thank and show appreciation to people in my family? Is this something like the “life is short, use the fine China/eat dessert first/don’t hold back” lesson? I think so.
So, she got whipped cream on her pancakes. Cale only wanted it on his strawberries.
To all past and future guests, now you know.
My standard pancake batter recipe: 1 egg 1 cup flour 1/4 cup sugar 1/3 cup oil 1 cup milk dash of salt dash of Penzeys pumpkin pie spices (or just nutmeg works too) 1 tablespoon baking powder I mix everything together except the baking powder with a wire wisk and then add the baking powder last and gently mix it in.
5 Responses to a breakfast lesson