Not your usual breakfast in bed

The other day, I read a post from the food blog Hummingbird High about an amazing-looking chia seed pudding with pistachios and kumquats (oh my gosh, right?). Michelle wrapped up the post by asking what readers’ dream breakfasts would be. The question made me realize that I had been getting my own perfect breakfast-in-bed for weeks—though it looks pretty different than how you might imagine.

Peeper goes through phases in her routine. She’ll wake up asking for a book for weeks on end then all of a sudden switch one day. For a long spell, she wanted nothing more than “raisin toast”—a cinnamon-raisin English muffin—as soon as I got her from her crib.

We developed an AM ritual. Eric would toast and butter a muffin and leave it for me on the bedside stand when he kissed me goodbye at 5:30. I’d sleep until Peeper woke up, and the breakfast would be ready for us.

Peeper and I would crawl back into my bed. We’d each grab a half of the English muffin and nibble while I read book after book to her—as many as lasted through my daughter’s appetite.

I kept a stack of books in the bedroom just for this reason. Peeper would snuggle into me and slowly wake up; I relished not only the closeness but the extra rest it gave me as I struggled through the tail end of morning sickness.

Sure, I had to sweep out a small mountain of crumbs from the sheets every day, and our comforter has butter stains now, but that was a small price to pay in return for the sweet wake-up routine.

One day, Peeper decided she no longer liked raisins. Just like that, she had switched allegiances to “triangle toast”—just toast cut on the diagonal, which apparently tastes completely different than toast cut in rectangles. Now we skip the books in bed entirely; she’d rather play while I cook our morning oatmeal.

I’m grateful to Hummingbird High for reminding me of that beautiful and crumb-filled stretch of breakfasts in bed. In the years to come, we might end up celebrating holidays by bringing pancakes or waffles (or chia seed pudding, dare I hope?!) back into bed, but something tells me I’d rather share cold English muffins and a few stories with my firstborn.