When I was little my Mom used to feed my sister and I cream of wheat – the old fashioned cream of wheat that tasted like nothing and had the consistency of snot. We would complain loudly and protest that we were being served gruel.* I would fantasize that I was little orphan Annie and some day Daddy Warbucks would come to get me and feed me donuts for breakfast.
Recently and probably a little ironically I have started making cream of wheat for Lucy in the morning – its quick, easy and really fills her up. Every morning I have to resist the urge to make snide comments about my own shortcomings as a Mom… I think it would probably be bad form to tell my daughter that if she’s really lucky some large bald man might one day show up and take her away from all this. Fortunatly for her (and me) she loves it and can’t seem to get enough – of course I give her the flavored kind, the one that doesn’t taste like snot…
*Honestly I might be wrong about my sister complaining about the cream of wheat, maybe she liked it? She seems to like it now as an adult – it might have just been the vitamins we had to take that she would loudly protest. O man she HATED those things and never ran out of hiding places to vanquish them to… I’m not really sure why, personally I liked the purple ones – yum, grape Flinstones! The point it we were NEVER happy at breakfast time.
Sticky Jam Hands 
Thank you for the footnote — I have always LOVED cream of wheat. It is a fantastic food that you can put loads of sugar on and still pretend that you are eating somehting healthy. I keep instant cream of wheat in my desk drawer at work for those times when I want to compeltely deplete the supply of refined sugar in the coffee area. As for the vitamins you are mostly right — the Flinstones ones I had no problem with. However, when we were upgraded to the adult vitamins I coudln’t stand them — they gave me horrendous indegestion that lasted the entire day. It was only later in life that I realized that it is the coating on certain vitamins that causes severe issues for me. I blame your mother for not being more sensitive to this and figuring it out sooner.
Ok – just another reason you are weird. I guess I have just always hated it enough for both of us… stupid gruel!
God! What an awlful mother you two had. I am still finding vitamin pills! And besides breakfast was always such fun…….