Breakfast cheese hates you

For the last three mornings, Kallan has gotten up and made her own breakfast. Yogurt, orange juice, fruit, and waffles. First, she toasts the waffles and makes a huge cheese sandwich with a giant handful of shredded cheese, and then she microwaves the entire thing so that the cheese gets melty. It’s a huge disgusting mess, and she loves it.

A breakfast masterpiece in progress.

So for the last three mornings, Kallan has been making and eating this breakfast. And for the last three mornings, shortly after eating this breakfast, she has complained that her stomach hurts. Yesterday, when it appeared that she was going to just lie in the hallway, naked except for her underwear, clutching at her stomach and grimacing in pain, I sat down with her to discuss smart choices. We had a talk about what could be causing her stomach to hurt, and she agreed that she needed to stop eating crazy cheese-waffle sandwiches for breakfast. Kallan suggested that she stay at home “until the cheese calmed down,” and I suggested that she take her crabby tummy to school and think about making a better choice the next morning.

At this point Maj exaggeratedly high-stepped over her sister’s hallway-blocking body and suggested, “If she wants to make a better choice, she might want to think about wearing something other than flowered underwear to school.”

Maj likes to be helpful by pointing out the obvious when she can.

That was yesterday. This morning, I watched as Kallan busied herself in the kitchen making her breakfast. Yogurt, fruit, orange juice, and two toasted waffles. I said nothing. She got out the giant bag of Costco shredded cheese and reached in for a handful. Still I said nothing. She assembled the giant cheese-waffle sandwich and carefully placed it in the microwave.

“Do you think,” I asked as neutrally as I could, “that you are making a good choice for breakfast?”

“Yup,” she said happily as she stared into the microwave and watched the cheese drip out of the waffle and onto the plate.

“Really?”

She looked at me with puzzlement, “What? This is what I always eat.”

I reminded her of the screaming and the stomach-clutching and the promises to lay off the cheese . . . now using my less than neutral voice.

“I just needed to fart, Mom. It wasn’t the cheese’s fault.”

Whatever. She ate the sandwich happily, finished the rest of her breakfast, and headed upstairs to get dressed.

Only to reappear 20 minutes later with contorted face and clutched stomach.

Sigh.

Maj looked at her sad crumpled sister with distaste, “How many times,” she asked, “does breakfast cheese have to tell you it hates you for you to get a clue?”

Indeed.

Kallan insisted she couldn’t go to school and lifted her shirt to show me a pushed out tummy she insisted was bloated beyond recognition. I suggested she work really hard at farting before she got to school and then spend the rest of the day making plans to eat less cheese. I also suggested that she change into looser pants so that her cheese choice had room to swell. When Kallan complained that she was going to have to go to the bathroom a million times at school, I told her that if she had an accident, I was sure the office had some old lost-and-found sweatpants for her to wear for the remainder of the day.

Are other moms more sympathetic in situations like this? Kallan seems to think that they are.

Maj crinkled her nose as she and Kallan headed out the door, “I am so not sitting anywhere near you if you are going to be farting up the bus.”

Are other sisters more sympathetic in situations like this? Kallan seems to think that they are.

Speaking of cheese . . . anybody else remember eating those giant orange blocks of government cheese as a kid? I don’t remember it being an identifiable kind of cheese, but I remember that it came in shoe-box sized bricks, and that it made the most delicious toasted cheese sandwiches ever. And when we ran out of bread, my brothers and sister and I would just hack off big chunks of the cheese to eat plain. It was delicious.

Now that I think back, I do remember that upset tummies and emergency runs to the bathroom were part of the government cheese-brick eating deal. And I do not remember ever allowing that realization to stop me from eating another melty cheese sandwich or from chopping off another thick slice of orangey goodness.

Hmmmmmm.

I guess Kallan comes by her cheese stupidity honestly. Or genetically.

Enough about cheese, I imagine you saying. Alright, alright. I write what I’m thinking. Today it’s cheese farts.

Ok, Ok . . .

You know the other day, I said that I should start working out? I keep driving past this sign that says, “Slow Athletics,” and I keep thinking that whatever this place is, it sounds like it’s perfect for me. How funny that they would target the slow loser athletes, right? Except it turns out it doesn’t say “Slow Athletics” at all. I drove by it yesterday and realized for the first time that the sign actually says, “Glow Aesthetics.”

Not the same thing at all.

Never mind.