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PANCAKES

Owl Jr. is of a decided picky bent when it comes to eating. Plain carbs, yes. Chicken strips and fries, yes. Gravy on chicken? NO. He's the sort of boy who eats apples all day long and polishes it off with a long tall drink of juice. And like any First World parent I worry about him eating enough. Tale as old as the post-industrialization-enabled abundance of food driving sprawling urbanization and  a dangerous reliance on genetically invariant foodstocks.
It's funny because I was never a picky eater. I was more like Owlet. Undiscriminating, enthusiastic, and like Owlet, maybe just a touch... dense for my age (not that she knows). Owl Jr. is just a ball of yelling screaming, jittery energy. He doesn't go anywhere, he bounces, he jostles, he judders.
So, so, so, I gotta, like a grandmother from country that is resolutely trying to get into the EU, fatten him up. He does like pancakes, of all things. I stuff it with blueberries and chocolate chips and I cram him with them during the weekend. Discs of carb and sugar and more carb. Owlet, for whatever reason, actually doesn't really like pancakes, so she gets eggs and sausage.
It's usually only Sunday that I do the breakfast. But every breakfast, my kids, looking up from Netflix, ask me what I'm making for breakfast. Adult life stretches out in routine, time crunches together and before you know it you are grumbling about your pension and taking a baffling interest in fly-fishing. What I'm saying is I'm not entirely sure how long I've been doing this breakfast, but we've gone through at least two of those Costco "Oh Look Now You Have To Feed The Street Dance Party After the Lowerr Middle Class Youth Sports Team Beats The Rich Kids Across The Lake"-sized pancake satchels. Awhile, in any case. What are they expecting me to say? Beef tartar with honey lemon confit?
People, generally hate change, kids doubly so. I can only asume they want assurances that their breakfast as per usual will not be altered. Or maybe they simply forget after five or six days. The flurry of pans and smoke and dicing and whatnot is, I've found, no concern of theirs. Results. And to be honest there have been a few dinners I've tried, hounded by some mysterious guilt to get my kids to try new things, that have been far too adventurous, ending with Mrs. Owl and I really enjoying it, our kids having a bite, then having some innocuous leftovers instead.
I guess its less of a question as an interrogation, a line drawn in the sand that they remember, and will no longer tolerate a repeat of the Sundried Tomato Incident. Plain carbs. Plain meat. Plain veg. Please and thank you.

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