A few weeks ago, I attended a luncheon where we had to participate in an ice breaker.  This particular ice breaker involved popping balloons that had slips of paper inserted into them prior to them being inflated. When you popped the balloon, the slip of paper appeared and you then answered the question on the paper.

My slip of papers asked, “What do you like to do on Saturdays. . .”

Immediately, my train of thought pulled away with from the station full of competing ideas. What do I like to do? What do I want to do? What do I wish I was doing? Do you mean this particular Saturday or every Saturday? Do I have to be grammatically correct and expletive free? Should I give a safe, vanilla answer or should I just say the first thing that comes out of my mouth?

In a matter of nanoseconds, I sorted and discarded a variety of options before settling on the one that made the most sense.  The fact that it was the honest truth didn’t hurt either. I introduced myself and my connection to the group and read the words on my slip of paper.

“On Saturdays,” I began, looking around the room, “I like to eat pancakes.”

Some time ago, I latched onto an idea of creating a tradition for our family.  I wanted to do something with regularity such that when the girls got older and had families of their own, they could look back and say, “We always did XYZ on such and such day.  I loved doing that!’  Now, the Hubs and I aren’t made of money, so as much as I wanted the tradition to be annual trips to the Vineyard or skiing in the Swiss Alps, I reached for something that was within the realm of possibility.  I decided that every Saturday morning, we’d have pancakes for breakfast.

Mmmm. . .pancakes. . .

Sure, I’ve tried to maintain the family dinner routine, but as it turns out, it’s not so much that every sits around the table and eats together as it is they are all present and accounted for.  On Saturdays, however, everyone is home, we don’t really have anywhere to be — at least not before 10 on most week-ends — and everyone needs to eat breakfast.  Besides that, from a culinary stand point, pancakes are easy to make (hello, Bisquick Shake and Pour), don’t take a lot of time and leave very little detritus when it comes to clean up.  And do I even have to say that pancakes are delicious! I love pancakes! Who doesn’t love pancakes?

Apparently, my family.

My family does not love pancakes.

At first, the girls were on board with Pancakes Saturdays.  They were drowning the cakes in syrup, mopping up remnants with pieces of crispy bacon and planting sticky kisses on my cheeks.  I made small pancakes. I made large flapjacks. I made pancake muffins whose golden tops were studded with bacon or pecans.  I made saddlebags,  sandwiching fried eggs and bacon in between to pancakes doused with syrup.    But several weeks into this burgeoning tradition, when they saw me taking out the milk, eggs, and mix, they began to reach for the cereal, causally reminding me that “Oh, yeah, we’d like some bacon, too, please.”

Several Saturdays went by and I was the only one eating pancakes — which, don’t get me wrong, was delightful to my palate, but left a little smudge of hurt on my feelings.  The Hubs, sweet and wonderful man that he is, took a few turns at the griddle on occasion, making pancakes for me, eggs for himself and pouring cereal for the girls.  I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed at how my attempts to forge some family traditions had morphed into a short order cook-line instead.  But I suppose, when you sweep away the spilled mix and wipe off the splash of milk, the point was for all of us to be together, spending family time. We were gathered around the family table, laughing and talking.  What was on the plate in front of us was irrelevant.

Pancake Saturday still soldiers ahead with me its lone standard bearer. I’m determined to keep this thing alive — even when out of town, if it’s Saturday and breakfast is to be had, I’m having pancakes.  Back at home during the normal course of our lives, I eat my pancakes as I see everyone else eating what makes them happy.  And instead of the girls growing up saying, “Oh, we always had pancakes on Saturday,” the plot has changed to, “My mom always ate pancakes on Saturday. She would let us bite her bacon and our dad would sneak us sips of his coffee. I loved those Saturday breakfasts. ”

. . .and they lived happily ever after.