Photo A Day, Day 19: Where You Ate Breakfast

Yesterday’s Photo-A-Day was photo-centric rather than writing-centric, because I happened to take an especially artistic photograph. Today, however, will be the opposite, since today’s topic is rather self-limiting and since I ate breakfast in a less-than-aesthetically-pleasing place. 

This might just be the dullest photograph ever taken on the planet Earth. Or at least the dullest photograph ever taken by ME on the planet Earth. But this is where ate breakfast, so this is my photo of the day.

Well, to be honest, saying that I “ate” breakfast here is not entirely accurate. In fact, I drank my breakfast here. I often begin my day with coffee and e-mail, usually while my children are starting their breakfast in the next room. They finish their breakfast around the same time I finish my coffee, so by the time I get to the “eating” part of my breakfast, there is no single place I could take a photo to represent where I ate breakfast.

I suppose I could put together a video or a slideshow of all the various places where my breakfast eating takes place. Today it would have started with the kitchen counter, since my breakfast began by stealing a bite of the first half of my buttered English muffin while I was buttering the second half. This was mainly a self-preservation strategy, since as soon as I went downstairs to the playroom, my daughter (who has English Muffin Radar) attached herself to my leg chanting alliteratively, “Mama, muffin – me!” and because I am a sucker, I gave it to her. Sometimes she loses interest after a bite or two and I can reclaim part of it later from wherever she’s discarded it (this could be anywhere from on one of the couch cushions, to on the table, to the shelf in front of the TV, to the bathroom sink), but today she apparently polished off the whole thing. (Or possibly found a new hiding place. Eek.)

Since today is Tuesday, a day that my son goes to pre-school, I grabbed a bite of the remaining muffin half in between making sure he was dressed for school. I had to double-check that he had everything he needed in his backpack, so I also snatched a few bites in the front hall and in my son’s bedroom while I was digging out an extra pair of socks for him. We had a little time to play before Daddy took him to school, so a few more bites happened while building Lego towers and reassembling a Transformer.

Since I didn’t manage to retrieve a significant portion of my English muffin from my daughter, I grabbed a piece of toast after the boys left for school. My daughter (who also has Toast Radar) promptly came upstairs to the kitchen and begged to share my toast, but I turned her down because I am a Mean Mom. (Also, I was hungry!) But I did accept her pleas to sit and doodle around at the piano, so I broke my own rule about no food near the piano and played Chopsticks with her while I nibbled.

And I hadn’t quite finished nibbling when I realized how late it was getting, so I polished off the last few bites in my own bedroom while I got myself dressed to go out.

So, let’s see…that makes “where I ate breakfast” at my computer, in front of the toaster, going down the stairs, in the playroom, in the front hall, in my kids’ bedroom, at the piano, and in my own bedroom. Now aren’t you glad I only made you look at one boring photo instead of a boring tour of my whole entire house? Because pretty much my whole entire house is where I ate breakfast.