breakfast of champions

Breakfast at our house is typically a chaotic time as I'm sure it is in any household with kids. With three little ones demanding food at the same time, and usually different food, it's loud and busy to say the least. For a few months now I've been saying we need a new toaster. Why? Well for starters ours is a few years old and while its still functioning, it seems to cook each subsequent piece a bit more so unless you watch it, the toast gets darker and darker. It's slow, and its a conventional 2 slice toaster. With 3 kids and 2 adults to feed, well we need more efficiency.

Breakfast typically goes something like this:

• Missy Moo is the first to demand 'tea' as both my toddlers call every meal.
• She's clicked into her chair and so begins the questioning to decipher what she wants to eat. I detest this with a passion as I truly feel she's too young to have an opinion but have found if I just serve up what I choose then its pushed away or thrown on the floor. Another thing I detest. I've been a parent for a while and I'm still not sure which of these I detest more?
• Once we've worked out what she wants I will get her choice started, be it cereal, toast, yoghurt or crumpets - yes she gets options but only suitable breakfast options.
• Its usually around now that Little Miss starts squawking for her breakfast - she can smell food right? Food prep is abandoned so I can pop her into her chair.
• I now have two girls carrying on wanting food.
• Back to food prep I go, and given Little Miss has porridge but neither of the toddlers do I am always getting two different meals ready at this stage.
• Monkey Man generally starts dancing around my feet, between my legs and pulling things off the bench about now. Yes, he's hungry too.
• I go to put him into his chair, he runs of course as its a game.
• Both girls are making it loud and clear they're hungry so whats taking so long.
• I catch Monkey Man and into his chair he goes, back to food prep I go.
• Monkey Man starts voicing his opinion, loudly so I can hear him over the girls.
• Guarantee he wants something completely different to Missy Moo, every.single.morning. If she's requested toast he will start shouting for 'bubbles and reeros' (rice bubbles and cheerios) and vice versa.
• 3 different meals are served as quickly as I can manage whilst watching the toast, warming the porridge and defrosting the crumpets that I forgot to take out of the freezer last night. damnit.
• The toddlers are occupied until their bowl or plate is empty so I quickly feed Little Miss her porridge. She of course bobs and wiggles around in her chair watching everything Missy Moo and Monkey Man do, any birds that go past the windows, anything interesting on the TV and heaven forbid I should have the dishwasher, washing machine or dryer on.
• I shovel food into her trying to time the completion of her meal around the same time as the toddlers finish their first course.
• Second course for the toddlers is pretty much the opposite of what they had first time around, which is easy enough to do, in theory. If one requests toast I will ask the other if they too want toast, I mean its quicker to make two pieces at once right? The answer is almost always no but as soon as they see the other with toast they start demanding their own. I'm wise to this and generally make two pieces at once and can magically give them both toast at once. Hubby often gets caught with this though, rookie mistake hahaha. If this toast is the second or even third course for one of them its generally not eaten, its the principle of the matter that 'they have toast so therefore so must I'.
• All 3 are generally cleaned up and let down from the table at once and I then try and clean up under the table and in their chairs. The mess is unbelievable on 'bubbles' or toast days!!

Trying to get my own piece of toast is however generally a long 4 step process. I make a couple of slices of toast for myself and one or both are eaten by our seagulls, I mean toddlers. I fight them for a bit but give in eventually and hand it over. I try again to make my own toast and that too is generally devoured by my clearly starving children. This is after their own breakfast by the way. I make a 3rd attempt and by this stage the kids are fighting over something and everything. While I break it up and send them to separate corners my toast burns to charcoal. A 4th attempt? Really? Can I even be bothered? Is there actually any bread left? I toast myself the last piece of bread, the crusty part, watching it so it doesn't burn, staying in the kitchen with toddlers climbing up my legs, between my legs, under my feet etc. I'm telling them to get out of the fridge, stop hitting, kicking or climbing on each other while buttering my crusty toast. Two bites into it, one or all three of the kids has a #2 situation to deal with and I'm so over the thought of toast, breakfast full stop and the effort that went into it, that into the bin it goes and off I go to change a nappy or three. I dread to think how much food we waste here.

Yes we need a new, 4 slice toaster. Maybe an industrial sized one? How do big families cope? I typed 'toasters' into google to do a bit of research as to whats new and great and got the following. Gotta love the internet! Perhaps one of these be our new family sized, super efficient toaster??

xx