Modern Day Pancakes

The other day my little boy, Garrett, who is in kindergarten brought home the wordless picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast, By Tomie De Paola. I love Tomie De Paola’ s illustrations and have for years ( for several years I illustrated children’s educational materials, so I especially paid close attention to his work.)

This simple book taught me lesson on gratitude.

The story goes through the day of an old woman who lived on a farm. She decided she wanted pancakes for breakfast. She then proceeds to have to milk the cow to get the milk, gather eggs from the chicken coop, churn cream to make butter, go out and purchase syrup from the maple syrup man (at least she could buy that and not have to drain it from the trees herself.)

The cute story goes on from there—but it really made me think.Usually, we have cold cereal, a bagel, a yogurt, instant oatmeal you can heat up in the microwave. Pancakes takes about 2 more minutes, but is still so easy!

All I have to do is take out the pancake mix, add water, plug in the griddle, get out the syrup and butter.

I’m so grateful I have the modern conveniences I have today that make my life easier:
A furnace, a washing machine and dryer, a stove, milk from a gallon jug, etc.

Of course, with all the freed-up time we now have compared to 50 or 100 years ago—we have no problem filling it up with other things. But at least these modern day conveniences give us more choices in how we spend our time.

I guess I can make modern day pancakes-- every once in a while.

-Teresa
momsmakingit.com