“The Usual”

I now eat breakfast every day.  This is a big deal for me.  Until a few years ago, I had always been a breakfast person.  Through high school, college, living on my own, the first years of marriage, and my pregnancy with Meghan, I never, ever missed breakfast and although it was small in terms of portion, it was almost always an extremely healthy one:  whole grains, soy, a vitamin, fruit, etc.  But after Meghan was born, something changed.  I had grown tired of the same old, same old, and started experimenting with new morning choices.  This led to no morning choices, and eventually to the point where my stomach simply couldn’t stand the thought of food for the first few hours after waking.  This is bad because my blood sugar would plummet, I would get grumpy, and then be both tired and starving by lunchtime. 

Of course I realized a while ago that this needed to change.  I initially decided that I would eat whatever I craved whenever I craved it in the morning.  If I was ready for lunch at 10:30 am and that lunch was spaghetti, I would eat it.  This helped a little, but didn’t get me where I needed to be.  This trip, I decided, was my opportunity to make this change permanent.      

It worked!  I am now hungry enough in the morning that I can eat.  I have been enjoying breakfast every day for a month and the waitresses now ask me if I want “the usual” when I arrive.  The usual is banana pancakes, bacon, coffee with cream and sugar, and a glass of water.  (It used to be pandanus pancakes, but pandanus is now out of season.)  The problem is that once I’m home, these things are unlikely to ever materialize on a plate in my kitchen.  And let’s be honest, there’s another problem.  This lifestyle of daily pancakes and bacon cannot go on long term.  But I did accomplish my goal of being able to eat in the morning, which was the most important.  Now I have to transition that into something easier and healthier when I get home.  But I think I can do it.  Surely when perusing the hundreds of cereals at the grocery store I can find at least one that will make a decent substitute, right?  I’m thinking some banana cereal with bacon bits tossed on top?  Is that just gross or could I be on to something?