Best Breakfast

Some of the best memories I have of my children are from when I was a single mom and struggling financially. That’s because when you don’t have much money, you have to get creative in order to make $1.00 buy what normally would take $2.00 to get. One way I used to save money was to use the ends of loaves of bread to make breadcrumbs. The kids refused to eat the ends on a sandwich, and I wasn’t very crazy about them myself, so I used to set them on a cookie sheet in the oven and let them dry out. Once dry, I’d crumble them, add seasoning, and I never had to buy breadcrumbs. And, I didn’t waste those two perfectly good pieces of bread. Now if it were homemade bread from my mom’s table, we would have fought over who got to eat those ends, but this was plain white sliced bread from the grocery store. So, what does this have to do with the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten? Let me tell you…

One of the best gifts I ever received from both my children was on Mother’s Day morning in 1993; my first Mother’s Day as a single mother. It was breakfast in bed. My daughter was 9 years old and my son was six. In retrospect, my mind remembers my children as being much younger than nine and six, but still…they were pretty young. On their own, my two young children prepared and served me breakfast in bed.

I didn’t hear them that morning as I slept soundly. I awoke to their soft whispers of “Mom…wake up. Happy Mother’s Day!”

As I opened my eyes, there stood my two beautiful bare-footed and sandy-haired babies in their pajamas holding a tray containing the breakfast they made for me. On the cookie sheet that doubled as a serving tray, there was a cup of hot black (lukewarm and light brown) coffee, toast (bread that had been sitting on a cookie sheet drying out so I could make breadcrumbs) with butter and jelly, a bowl of instant oatmeal (made with a little too much water), and juice. Everything “looked” delicious! I made sure I ate every bite! In addition, with each bite I told my children how much I love them. I also made sure I mentioned that this breakfast was the most delicious breakfast I had ever had.

That breakfast was 21 years ago. Today my babies aren’t babies any more. My daughter is 30 years old and my son will soon be 28. We’ve celebrated many other Mother’s Day breakfasts together at some very fancy places, and I cherish those times. I cherish any time I get to spend with my children. But, no coffee has ever tasted richer, no bread ever sweeter than that Mother’s Day breakfast in bed!

Today’s card is one I made using the leftovers from my Perpetual Birthday Calendar kit.

Again, this is a 3-1/2″ x 5″ notecard, but it can be easily turned into a regular size card. Hope you enjoyed your visit today. Until next time…