My Littlespace a book about me

Part 9: How To Cook A Little's Breakfast

Starting a day off right requires some different things for different people, but we can almost universally agree that being cooked breakfast by someone you love is a great way to start feeling good on a given morning.

That's doubly true for littles, whose morning moods vary from "OMG YES I'M AWAKE!!" to "OMG NO, ALREADY AWAKE!?" with a bundle of other possibilities on the side for extra fun ("oh morning? maybe ill be fussy but quiet for an hour for some reason?") or ("ahhh, mornings, i wonder if mommy/daddy wants snuggles to wake up too. i bet they do!")

That's why you need to advice on making sure the mornings get to start off with happy littles, and fun.

Step 1: Get out of bed before them

Not always easy, this is step one for a good reason...for some people it's natural, you'll be awake and up and out of bed at 6 AM even on the weekend. Of course, for NON-CRAZY people, it might be harder, or a little will possibly be resting on you, or snuggled up against you, or maybe just sticking a single leg over yours in a strange proprietary stance that makes you wonder how they sleep comfortably in that position? Ignore that question for now. You're getting up. Even if that means a very quiet alarm, or a conscious choice to just get up first, or the slow disentanglement of your body from theirs to be replaced with a big warm stuffy...get up first, and get started.

Step 2: Decide on a good breakfast plan.

So what do you want the breakfast to be? My advice is something warm, not too messy, and favored by your little. You can also try going healthy...but be warned, it doesn't always go well, and might require creativity. After all, getting up, ABANDONING them in a warm bed, all to start the day off with oatmeal? Not likely to win you many friends. But if that oatmeal happened to have cut up apples, and brown sugar...maybe it's ok.

side note: MAJOR WARNING the cooking sounds should remain quiet and not too much smell should reach out. Otherwise, you're going to have a groggy, suddenly woken up little who will be confused about why they're with a stuffie instead of YOU, and then they'll be up and awake before you finish breakfast ...meaning disaster has struck. Be careful caregivers. This is the dangerous part of the morning

Step 3: Cook breakfast

Seriously, i want to write something cutesy here but let's be honest...its cooking breakfast. It's hard to do wrong. And hopefully involves not waking the little up, or stuff...soooo, yeah. Not a complicated step.

Step 3B: OK, well, maybe one quick additional note about cooking.

i guess i should mention to make the cooking fun and do creative things with it. Like, pancakes SHOULD be cooked into cute shapes. And if using toppings, made into hearts, or smiley faces. And i guess you might want to consider other food ideas, like making a fruit plate into a tower or something...maybe their favorite cereal in their favorite bowl, with a cute note written on a piece of paper so they can get all goofy and silly and excited reading your little morning love note. Basically, still, just cook breakfast. But do it well and cute and stuff.

Step 4: waking them up

Waking them up is complex. You might find yourself being pulled into bed, which is why prep is so important...you need to have the food ready to go or you will not succeed. You will end up giving cuddles in bed forgetting about the food if you don't already have it ready. So, be careful, and be aware of that. There are a few other minor dangers to avoid; waking them up too aggressively, and scaring them, or being too rushed and turning on the light before they have time to adjust, or being seduced by their potentially flirtatious morning greeting. Whatever the case...stay the course if you can. Wake them up, tell them you've got their breakfast ready, and slowly and calmly leave the room. If you stay and offer to help them start the day...you WILL have them move slower because it's fun to get more focus and attention, and you'll end up not leaving the bedroom for a few hours at very least.

Step 5: Clean Up

If you have a little willing to help or even take over cleanup, then this is amazing, but possibly dangerous. Think about it...you're asking someone whose natural talents are being cute, loving, silly, and sometimes destructive to start cleaning just after they have been sent into little space by you making them breakfast, and somehow you don't expect messes? No, there WILL be messes, probably. But it'll be just part of the continued cleanup, if it's quick and fun. So keep them laughing, and starting the morning well, and OMG make sure sure to not require them to clean longer than it took to cook! If you do, there's some strange universal equation that seems to say they will almost definitely be fussy the rest of the day, or suddenly not feel like getting made a fun breakfast was worth this laborious, difficult clean up.