My children USED to eat breakfast like a dream. Henry would dive into a big bowl of fruit salad with some yoghurt and then put away two slices of wholemeal toast.
Tilly would have porridge or her favourite organic cornflakes with some grated apple or pear.
No more.
Don't know what happened really. One minute we were all good, the next minute breakfast was an ordeal. No one wanted any. They weren't hungry till morning tea time.
My dear friend Anita, possibly the single biggest influence on the way I feed my kids (and someone you'll hear a lot more about here), gently told me (actually not gently, but very persuasively) that I wasn't trying hard enough. And that I needed to try harder.
She was right, and I decided to start with what I knew they would "eat" (a cup of milk) and turned it into a brekky shake.
This is Tilly on her first of two, this morning.
For about a month now we've been having variations, but it basically goes like this:
1 cup full cream milk
1 tablespoon natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon honey
1 egg
(so it's kind of an egg flip – did you used to have those?)
then maybe blueberries, a banana, sometimes I sneak in wheatgerm, strawberries – you get the picture. I use an old fashioned milkshake maker, like the one Mum had.
Tilly insisted on a second (yeah, NOW they're hungry…)
And inevitably as I'm running out the door with both children trailing, backpacks falling open, Henry needing a loo stop and Tilly spotting Cow, the neighbours black and white cat, under the dining table about to be locked in our house (again), THEN they both demand toast for the car. At which I dump the bags, growl, and happily put bread in the toaster. Because we'll be late but they'll have eaten well and that's kinda my thing.