Devonne Brown

“Mom, I want pancakes,” said Ian.

“I want waffles, not the frozen kind either, the ones in the waffle iron,” said Nick. 

They ran to the kitchen.

I rolled my eyes. Pre coffee, my darling twins were giving me breakfast orders. Surely they wanted to grow up. This wasn’t the Waffle House, this was home, which was more hectic, less organized, and far less convenient. 

There was nothing to do but accommodate them. They’d be doing the cooking, and it would be hell. Ian had taped the pancake recipe to the back of the plate cabinet when we first moved into the house. Nick followed suit with the waffle recipe, he used the spice cabinet. 

They manned their stations. 

The twins had developed a system for concurrent pancake and waffle mornings long ago. They discovered that pancakes and waffles were essentially the same batters, but waffles take way more oil than pancakes. So, Ian would make the mother batter, give half to Nick, where he added the appropriate amount of oil to his batter.

Although the dance of organized frying, and floor to ceiling flying flour was a wonder to behold, their bickering and caterwauling about nothing and everything made me crave Bloody Marys by the gallon, which, as a single mom, was the last thing I could do. I may have had to drive someone to the emergency room because of a cooking tragedy. Knife wounds were rare with pancakes and waffles, but twin boys made anything possible.

“Ian’s in my way.”

“Nick’s got my dish towel.”

“I had that first, make him give it back.”

Cooking skills have to be mastered, but why did they insist on mastering them when I was perfectly willing to wait on them hand and foot to let peace and tranquility reign? I would have been content to raise helpless men if I didn’t have to listen to them bicker about who got to use the wooden tongs first, or wear the cool apron. But no, they wanted to do it themselves. I had to have two of everything, clean and ready to go at all times. Compromises were not their strong suit.

“Mom, my waffle is sticking all over this, this thing,” Nick was in the throes of a waffle disaster. It always took me about five waffle pile ups to make one good, fluffy, living breathing waffle. I assumed it had something to do with the heat of the waffle iron. I hate those things to this day. I have lost count of  how many I’ve thrown away. 

By the time I rescued Nick, the equipment was the right temperature and was producing perfect waffles. I made a pile as big as his head. I was the Goddess. Mother of the year box ticked.

“Mom, my pancake won’t flip,” cried Ian.

A pancake covered the entire bottom of the biggest skillet I had. I closed my eyes, sighed, and scraped it out. Cleaned the bottom, did the grease thing, and got it hot, and poured tiny quarter sized pancakes into the hot pan. 

While I made the pancakes Ian got his ceramic sombrero out of the top of the cabinet. Nick kept his in the other cabinet. Though designed for chips and guacamole, I always filled the sombreros with crisp warm mini pancakes and hot syrup. Hideous and huge, the full sombrero was the symbol of happy and home. Ian beamed. Another mother of the year box ticked.

Give me my coffee.