Colorado Crockers

At 5:45 I am joined in bed by a small, blond man who insists on putting his cold toes on my warm back. I ignore him until 6:30 when his insistent "Is it wake up time yet?" for the 20 time becomes too much to bare. Stumble downstairs and start a pot of coffee. J- "Mama, I'm hungry" M- "Sure buddy, what kind of cereal do you want?" J- "I don't want cereal, I want eggs" M- "Ok, scrambled?" J- "No, dipping ones. With toast" 10 minutes of food prep, with constant commentary and questioning if it was ready yet. Hand him one egg and a piece of toast. J-"Its hot. Blow it, please?" Spend 5 minutes of blowing on eggs and toast until toddler thinks it is safe J- "Toast is icky. I just want the egg." Sister walks in and asks for cheerios. I pour her a bowl, top with blueberries, she says "thanks" and proceeds to eat. J- " I want cereal!" M- " Buddy, you asked for eggs

I did it, the thing I said I would NEVER do. I have raised entitled children. It started innocently enough. I like to eat, and therefore, place high value on cooking. Add that to being gluten free and I have spent many hours in my kitchen. It is family ritual to sit together every evening and enjoy hot coco and cookies. The other night, I committed the unforgivable sin (at least in my entitled children s eyes) and I served gluten free OREOS. Not a home baked slice of caramel apple cake or a snickerdoodle fresh from the oven, but a boxed-neatly-in-a-row cookie from the store. This is when I realized that my children have reached a dangerous level of home-baked cookie entitlement. We have several types of store bought treats including, but not limited to, candy, cookies, wafers and newtons. All of these are stored at kid-can-reach level, but they remain mostly untouched. Alas, they are ruined, but I guess I am too. It is hard to beat a fresh from the oven treat. This morning I