Breakfast, The Most Important Meal of the Day

And for me, the longest too.

We normally have breakfast together but somehow or other I end up being the last to finish mine. My breakfast starts at around 7:30-ish in the morning and ends sometime around 10:30am. Not to say that I am sitting facing my food the entire 3hours.

Far from it. In fact, the reason I take that long is that I'm hardly at the breakfast table! It usually starts with tea and whatever we are having for breakfast that morning, e.g. nasi goreng, or roti canai, or french toast, etc. Then about halfway through one or both boys will require a trip to the loo and will, shall we say, take a long time.

Then there's the regular fight for a toy that needs to be resolved. Then there's the whining to nip, and recently it's been Adik who's been waking up on the wrong side of my bed.

Ok, another couple of mouthfuls of breakfast and it's time to get Abang ready for kindergarten. Shower, brush teeth, pack his bag, etc. I'm fortunate that all these tasks are usually shared between me, Wan and Daddy which is probably why I can even eat some breakfast at all.

Oh yeah, there are also the cats to be fed.

After leaving my half-eaten breakfast to send Abang to kindergarten, I come back to some peace and quiet and cold toast waiting to be eaten. And then there's the laundry all done and ready to hung out to dry! Yay!

I just realised that this is not unlike what my breakfast was like when I was a child. Except that I didn't have all these chores to do and I actually DID sit at the table for hours attempting to finish my breakfast.

Back then, apart from Milo, milk and toast, our breakfast included a half-boiled egg. I absolutely could not stand the taste or smell of that thing. But we were all made to finish it, by hook or by crook, no matter how long it took. So it would literally take me hours to finish it. Each teaspoonful had to be drowned by a big gulp of Milo or milk, after which I would need about 5-10 minutes to recover.

Yes, torture indeed. Until today I cannot tahan that stuff. I can eat scrambled, fried, hard-boiled, poached ... but show me a half-boiled egg and I'll gag. Really.

The circle of life continues ...