Child #1: "But I don't want oatmeal! I want cereal!"

Child # 2: "But IIIIII want oatmeal! With sugar!"

Child # 3: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"

And so went our breakfast time, day after day after day. Each person wanted his favorite thing for breakfast, and he wanted it day after day after day. And this Mama, being a rather uptight kind of sort, wasn't really into the "short-order cook" gig, nor did she want her kids to miss out on the nutritional excellence in say, a bowl of grits.

So I came up with a plan, a weekly menu that looks like this:

Weekly Breakfast Menu

Sunday - Scrambled eggs and fruit
Monday - Oatmeal
Tuesday - Hard-boiled eggs and fruit
Wednesday - Grits
Thursday - Cereal
Friday - Cereal
Saturday - Waffles or pancakes

And I posted it on the refrigerator for everyone to see. Course, only one of the three kids can read and has any concept of what day of the week it is, but that's beside the point. This menu became The Breakfast Law. There was no arguing with The Menu.

It took the troops a few weeks to get with the program, but since then, our breakfasts have been complete and utter bliss.

Oh, I like to dream.

But really, it has added a measure of order and calmness to the morning, where at one time fighting was the norm. Now my kids just fight over something else.

And, it gets my kids to eat eggs and oatmeal, which have a mite better nutritional content than, errrrrr, Fruity Cheerios.