i don't like syrup on my pancakes.

i never realized what a big moment it would be when Ellie peddled on her tricycle for the first time.
no no, i'm not talking about learning how to ride a two-wheeler bike.
i'm just talking about peddling...on her little squatty trike.
peddling is hard work.
who knew?
so today, Ellie peddled all by herself.
5, maybe 6 times around. and then she got to a little hill. and it got too hard again.
but still, she did it!
she squealed out of such pure excitement and joy.
and my back squealed out of pure excitement and joy...because leaning over to push her on that thing for extended amounts of time hurts my back. my poor, poor back.

you'd think on such a monumental day of her life that we would have started with some sort of Wheaties Breakfast for Champions or something.
but no. we didn't.
we just had pancakes.
the bisquick kind...no krusteaz around here. igghhhick to krusteaz. i love the salty bisquick pancakes. and i'm slowly convincing M that the bisquick ones are the best. but he's still pretty loyal to the easy peezyness of krusteaz.

back to breakfast:

of course, Ellie loves her pancakes drenched in syrup.
in fact, she asks me several times during her pancake consumptions "more syrup, please?"
and so i obey, like a good mother would do, and drizzle another cup of syrup over her 3 remaining bites of pancakes.

well, i don't like syrup on my pancakes. (gasp!)
and i don't like to eat my pancakes with a fork. (double gasp!)
i like mine hot off the griddle...and i like to break it apart in my hands...kind of like a pilgrim eating those hard-tack biscuits or something.
and you want to know something totally weird?
a couple of months ago when my mama was here for a visit, we were making pancakes on a morning like today...and i went to grab one off the griddle...and there she was, hovered over that skillet, eating hers in a pilgrim-hard-tack-biscuit sorta way. i swear i'd never noticed that before. we both liked pancakes without syrup? was it genetic to eat pancakes this way? like mother like daughter, i suppose.

so Ellie happened to observe me eating my pancakes this way today.
she was angry.
"where is your syrup, mama?"
"i don't like mine with syrup, Ellie."
"yes you do, mama."
"no, i don't, Ellie."
(now Ellie was yelling) "that's weird, Mama! YES YOU DO! HAVE SYRUP!"
and then i started laughing.
and then Ellie continues her angry yells,
"STOP LAUGHING MAMA!!"

{insert inconsolable, inexplicable sobs here}

why is she so stinking stubborn?
why can't she let me eat my hard-tack-biscuit-bisquick-pancakes in peace?

and then i had these visions rush into my brain a million-miles-an-hour...
visions where i shrunk into a little Ellie-sized body...
where i was screaming at my dad for eating a bite of potatoes off of my plate.
and then when he was laughing, i remember yelling at him,
"IT'S NOT FUNNY!"

{insert inconsolable, inexplicable sobs here}

and then after my parents were undoubtedly concerned i was overheating, and going to simultaneously combust, i was whisked away to a cold shower where all i remember saying was, "i...have...my...clothes...on!" over and over and over again.
and then i came back to this morning where Ellie was screaming at me.
and i thought,
why couldn't she just like pancakes without syrup?

xoxo