Breakfast of Champion

Maybe there's a reason those teeth are missing...

Saturday.

Is there a better day in the week?

For 8-year-old Diane, Saturday really stood out.

It was the one day of the week she got to start things on her own.

I should probably point out here that everyone else’s schedule didn’t change one bit. Mom still rose at the crack of dawn to make breakfast for all and sundry. Look after her two babies and numerous other children. Clean. Hoe the garden. Take care of the pets that we children insisted on getting (and tended diligently for the whole of two hours). And generally make sure that the home wheels were greased and running smoothly.

Dad had also risen at the same time. Heading out into the pure morning air to coordinate with the hired men and make assignments, check the animals in the ranch proper, feed said animals, milk any and all available cows and generally greet the rising sun before reporting back to the ranchhouse for a well-earned breakfast.

The older kids had gotten up more or less with our parents. Eaten and hurried off to their assigned tasks.

Then Diane awakened. Stumbled out of her bedroom to an empty, tidy kitchen (yes, Mom was a miracle worker) and began to scrounge up her own breakfast.

Okay, yes, there was probably a plate of something foil-wrapped and kept warm on the back of the stove, but what fun was there in that?

Especially when Mom wasn’t there to supervise Diane’s sugar intake.

Because that was what ‘scrounging her own breakfast’ meant.

Sugar.

Now on a normal day, Diane was allowed just two teaspoons of chocolate in her glass of frothy, fresh milk.

When Mom was absent, the sky was the limit.

And the colour of the milk went from white to dark in a few delicious, heaping-teaspoonsful seconds.

But it didn’t end there.

Nope.

There was also the bowl of branflakes. Poured generously into Diane’s favourite bunny bowl. Packed down and covered with just the right amount of creamy milk. Packed down again to make sure every flack received its milky due.

Then unsupervisedly (?) covered again with a rich layer of granulated, white, heaven—aka: sugar.

Then the eating—or rather—gorging began.

You have to know that Mom wasn’t very often absent from the kitchen—even on Saturdays.

That’s probably the main reason Diane is still alive today . . .