Posts Tagged ‘valentine’s day’
Valentine’s Breakfast of Love
Monday, February 15th, 2010
The traditions I’m most excited to carry on from Mom are her breakfast celebrations.
Growing up, my mom decorated the table for four major non-holidays. We awoke to decorations and little wrapped gifts every Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s Day, Three Kings Day and Halloween.
So now that I have my own girls, well, I see where this is going.
Last night in the low-memory hours before I collapsed into bed, I set the table. I decorated with hearts from paper Nora Lea had colored. Those hearts scattered down the middle of the table.
Sparkling wine and strawberry juice, chilled for Valentine’s Day mimosas. I made the pancake batter, used a funnel to put the batter into a squirt bottle and set that in the fridge.
(Let’s not forget preparing the coffee maker, this is also a vital night-before task.)
At the grocery store, I bought nine latex balloons in pink, orange, white and red. I hid them in the garage. Before Nora Lea woke up, I tied four to each chair.
(The last one was saved for Nora Lea.)
In the morning, I woke with the wee ones and snuck downstairs to bake bacon, make the pancakes and serve up the fruit salad. Our pancakes are made with chants of “Pan-Cake. Pan-Cake.”
Entertaining a toddler requires lots of dishes but it can be done. We added rice, glitter and some strawberry trimmings for a complete toddler bowl of stir.
The little lady was so excited for all the decorations that after all her stirring, she snuck up on the chair, chanting, “Mo! Mo! Mo!” Chants of “Mo!” are saved for the finest toddler delights. Balloons, syrup and sausage also make that list.
James got the Valentine’s gift from me of the extra two hours of sleep on Sunday. Once, we used to give gifts that were things. Now we gift sleep. Precious, mo’ than gold.
The pancakes turned out heart-shaped indeed. They reheated well for when James made it downstairs. They go perfectly with the maple syrup my brother makes. My brother is skilled like that.
Her first breakfast sausage caused a flurry of signs for, “Mo? Mo!?”
We had a mimosa toast, James and I. We gave Nora Lea her first champagne — ha! just kidding! — we gave her some strawberry juice in a champagne flute and found it surprisingly toddler-friendly. She didn’t spill at all. Now she’s demanding all her water come from a flute.
Blessed is my fruit.
I love me a good Valentine’s day breakfast party.
