Breakfast? Seriously, I’m writing about breakfast, but hear me out, there’s more to this. You see I bang on about happiness and navigating your way through life to overcome obstacles and finding joy in the little things and well as we’ve sat this morning sipping our smoothies and chewing our bacon, it came to me. What do all those things really look like?

I follow Simon Sinek and have read a few of his books, he’s very good at summing things up and it was an interview I was watching him in that truly help me summarise what I’m going to say in this blog. He asked the co-star on this show how they knew they loved their spouse. In short he put it down to not being a specific thing or moment, but the small consistent things day by day that add up to the big thing of loving them.

Well it’s the same with happiness isn’t it? You see breakfasts are kind of a thing for me and P and I guess I never realised it until someone else pointed it out, in fact I don’t think they even realised it, they just said they’d love some of our pancakes!

You see I bang on about things just being me and little P nowadays but even when I was still with my ex, breakfasts were our thing, me and her. P has never really been a sleeper and my mat leave was spent mainly me and her having some lazy mornings. My ex rarely used his annual leave ever and weekends he was up and out to take his other child on his paper round, so mornings have always been just me and P right from the get go. Weaning saw the start of it, I’d be getting my breakfast ready whilst batch cooking and prepping some finger foods and purées, radio on, baby P in her high chair dancing and singing with me as I chopped, mashed stewed and baked. Then I sat at the table with her as she smeared avocado or porridge and berries around every surface within her reach, as I ate mine, chatting away to her. Then as she grew her breakfasts and all meals in fact, resembled more and more of mine and it became our morning thing.

To be fair, most meal times are like this, if we’re at home we’re mainly in the kitchen, radio on, something bubbling or baking sways and we’re sat together eating if it’s that time of the day. We natter, we’re silly, we sing, we dance, we draw and we paint in that kitchen, it’s our space and there’s just something special about it.

Breakfasts and our mornings together are something special, not on a work/school day I hasten to add-that’s just a set routine without any distractions to ensure we’re out the door on time and relatively unscathed! But weekends and my weekly day off are dressing gowns and slippers, a posh coffee (only a tassimo pod but still) and whatever menu takes our desire! We’ve had breakfast burritos, bagels, breakfast muffins and bacon, you name it we’ll breakfast it. We make it together, we sit together and munch away whilst nattering on about nonsense-today it was about Elsa and Anna were friends with Moana and if they all knew Merida. It’s one of the things I really enjoy us doing together and actually miss if we’ve to be out the door earlier on non-working day.

Like I said before, I never realised how much these morning traditions meant to me, in fact how much the cooking, sitting and eating together meant. How much that room and the time we spend in there together meant. Until one friend turned to me and said, “I’d love some of yours and P’s pancakes they look epic” (yes our pancakes are a fave, we love them) then combined with the worlds of Sinek, the penny dropped, that’s us, that’s what we do, just like the characters in Friends all hang out at the coffee house, just like Sarah Jessica Parker and co have their ladies that lunch, just like the residents of Corrie come together for a hot pot, breakfast pancake time is our thing. Just me and P.

Most importantly though, our thing is what makes the happiness and love that Sinek talks about. It’s the consistency, the small regular gesture and tradition that we enjoy that matters. I just needed to notice it, amongst other things. Sometimes it’s not about making big changes, it’s not about really changing your thought patterns, it’s just noticing and realising what are the consistent things that you enjoy, that you love, that make you happy.

Breakfast time, hmmm what to have tomorrow morning…