I don’t know why it is, but when I was a kid, having breakfast food for dinner seemed like a treat. To my mom, it was probably just a night off from having to cook a substantial meal for us, but regardless, I loved having breakfast food for dinner. It wasn’t like she dropped a bowl of cereal in front of us. We would have pancakes, or eggs and bacon, that kind of breakfast food.

Sometimes I’ll do similar for my kids, but I’ve changed it up a bit. Tonight, we had crepes for dinner. More specifically, we had fresh berry crepes. Here’s the simple recipe I use to make the crepes:

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole-grain all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 Tbs melted butter
• 1/4 tsp salt

Combine the flour and 2 eggs, then slowly add the water, milk, melted butter, and salt.  Mix gently until evenly blended.  Heat a non-stick pan on med-high heat for about 2 minutes.  Spray pan with cooking spray, then pour some of the crepe batter onto the pan (about enough to cover a medium-size pan).   Cook for about 2 minutes then flip and let cook for about 1 more minute.  This recipe should make about 6 crepes.

Using the method above, I’ll cook each crepe individually.  I keep the oven on low and keep the crepes warm as I finishing cooking more or them.

I place one of the crepes on an empty plate and add a handful of blueberries and raspberries.  Next, I add a dollop of low-fat, organic vanilla yogurt.  After that, I wrap the crepe up, spray a little whip cream on top, and sprinkle a few random berries and a small amount of powdered-sugar to garnish.  Voila!  The crepe is ready to serve.

I usually get nothing but rave-reviews from my really picky kids.  Bon appetit!

The single-parent is charged with many varied and vast duties. I get up in the morning and have to get my two young kids going. My youngest can’t even dress herself yet. My oldest seems to get sidetracked somewhere between dressing and brushing teeth and often ends up playing with the cats. Meanwhile, I’m getting my sorry-butt in the shower, shaving, and trying to find a pair of matching-BLANKING socks. I get the kids fed, and pack lunches and we’re off to school or daycare, or just daycare, or school and Grandma’s, or any other crazed-combination of destinations. Now, I get to fight rush-hour traffic to work.

I work a full day, then run a pickup-route that corresponds to whichever combination of drop-offs I had in the morning (all the while hoping I can remember where the hell my kids are). We get home and feed the cats, have some dinner, get whatever needs to get done (yeah, right), and hopefully have a few minutes to play, watch a movie, or read together. Then it’s baths and bedtime for the kids and maybe some time for me to clean up the piles of clothes, clean, and so on. Keep in mind that while this average-day is going on, I’m constantly breaking up fights, attending to boo-boos, trying to give individual, focused attention, and I am dead-ass tired because I stayed up too late posting on this site.

So sometimes, sometimes I get a bit tired and flustered – stressed. That was how I was today when I nearly put my hands around my mother’s neck and squeezed… hard.

“Dan, your father and I struggled all the time. Do you think it was easy for us?”

I flat-out told her I would choke her if she continued. You see, mom was a stay-at-home mom. She had time. There WERE enough hours in the day to tidy up the house, do laundry, cook meals, and be a caring and focused parent. When she got stressed out, Dad stepped it up and maybe took us out for a while. When one of them was slipping, the other picked up the slack. When one of them was looking for support, the other was there for support. They made a great team and excellent parents.

Sometimes I wish I had a team… or maybe an army.