Every weekday I put the alarm at 7.15 to have time to do all the morning preparations in a not-so-stressful pace before going to the kindergarten bus with our son. (Although sometimes I treat myself to a little snooze if I managed to prepare his clothes and bags the night before.) On Saturdays however, we normally have nothing planned for the morning so then we sleep in. Our I should say intend to sleep in – it does not often happen since our son wakes us up around 7.30, wanting to have breakfast. Lately it has become somewhat of a tradition to have pancakes for Saturday morning breakfast. Not the Swedish thin ones but the American style ones that are so popular in Japan and are called ホットケーキ, literally meaning hot cake. Our son has taken a real liking to our pancake breakfast which has made it even more difficult to sleep in since he is eager to wake up and have his hotto ke–ki. He wakes up, and climbs around on top of his mum and dad, he drags our arms, saying that it is time to wake up and go and make pancakes. And by the time my wife and I time make it downstairs, our son stands waiting on his stool, having put on his apron and brought the pancake powder from the pantry.
The newfound interest in pancake making has resulted in a very firm opinion of which pancake powder we should buy at the store. Our son wants to have the one with a white bear on the package, and white bear cakes has become the nickname for our pancakes. He knows we need egg and milk, and even though he gets tired when mixing everything after a bit, he tries hard before giving up. Normally we eat the pancakes with bananas and maple syrup, but one Saturday we did not have any syrup at home. I looked everywhere and eventually found a bottle of chocolate sauce, left over from our summer evenings’ ice cream desserts. Our son loved it, and after having gotten the taste for chocolate sauce on his pancakes, chocolate sauce is all he wants. When I protest, he tells me very calmly: It is Saturday daddy. And I can eat chocolate on Saturdays. You have said that. Of course he is right, so we indulge him. Because it is Saturday after all.
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