Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day. In our family, it’s even more than that. It’s our favorite (or at least mine!).
Yes, our family usually starts (starts is the key word here!) the day with healthy foods. Toast, tea, and scrambled egg or oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter on the side keep our breakfasts simple and wholesome. Eating healthy is not only good for you, but makes you feel good. Whole-grain bread and a pat of butter may not be the tastiest breakfast, but hey! Don’t you feel great afterwards that you ate healthy? Whereas, after eating pancakes (with white flour!) and a certain number of strips of fried bacon you try hard not to think about, you feel…awful? Well, maybe that’s just me. 😀
But really, it’s not only the ‘wholesomeness’ of breakfast that makes it our family’s favorite. It’s what happens during breakfast.
Now, reader, fair warning. If you’ve read previous entries of this blog, you should be well aware of my infatuation with books. Books, books, books! Really, this is a bookworm’s blog. Now you should also know, that not only I but my entire family simply loves books. And as we are also a family that treasures spending time together, we put two and two together. This means reading at the breakfast table! 😀 (If you can’t stand reading another post about my dear books, then bugger off already! And yes, we’re a rather bad-mannered family. ) 😛
Mother has always been in the habit of reading aloud to her children. And really, if she hadn’t taken the time to do so, I don’t think I would have learned to love books and reading as much as I do now. But as we children grew older, time began to slip by faster. As the years went by, our family grew (and of course with it the number of chores!). Our study hours and extra-curricular activities increased, and there were only so many hours in a day. Where did we fit reading aloud in all this?
Simple. At the breakfast table.
As Dad makes a second cup of coffee, Camille toasts another piece of bread, and I pour myself another cup of tea, Mom picks up a certain, worn book and flips to the last chapter read. Then, the breakfast adventure begins. Though it may seem we’re busy working away at our bowls of oatmeal or perhaps we’re finishing off that last piece of french toast, really, we’re half-way around the world exploring the wild jungles of India, or perhaps we’re being romanced by an American sailor just returned home from rounding the Cape of Good Hope. But whatever we’re doing or wherever we are, the entire family is together (excepting Dad, who’s rather hidden behind the folds of the newspaper! But even then, we notice he seems to laugh at all the funny parts and put on his sorrowful face at the sad ones. AND, he always suddenly frowns when the girls, including Mommy, get too giggly and red at a ‘lovering’ scene.)
FYI: This post is rather outdated. It is actually reminiscent of our ‘sonlight days’. (Don’t bother asking what that actually means.) And since our family’s big move to the Philippines, our breakfasts have changed considerably for the reasons below:
1. There seems to be no whole-grain bread in this country! O.O
2. No one can really drink tea in a temp. of 30+ degrees. (Though Mom and Dad still enjoy chugging down their mugs of coffee.) 🙂
words + pictures 