He is only six, but he would make Epicurus proud.
It was a busy morning. I had gotten up early with my wife. She was headed to work early, and I had to get breakfast started for the kids. I normally do this, but I had to get it started earlier than normal because one kid was headed to school earlier. I would have to run her there, come back for kid number two.
I made pancakes that morning. Kodiak powercakes (Don’t tell my kids, but I sneak some vanilla protein powder in there. They are unlikely to notice due to the sheer volume of chocolate chips in the batter.) and maple syrup. I busted out three pancakes, one for each kid, with bonus tiny pancakes on each plate. Woooeeee! I am such a good dad! Pat on the back, me!
I made one mistake. I left the Costco sized bottle of maple syrup on the counter. And then I left.
I have watched my son eat pancakes before. Or more accurately, I have watched him eat syrup before.
Before we learn what happened with this morning’s pancakes, I want to share one of the many reasons I knew I could spend my life with my wife. Legacy and family are both important to us. The traditions, the bonds, the support, and safety of family are things we both hold dear. We believe that through sharing our wealth, knowledge, and experiences as a family, our kids will have it better than we did, and their kids will have it better, and we aspire to build a legacy that continues on in this fashion for as many generations as possible.
One tradition of my family: We are not a syrup-on-top-of-pancakes type of family, we are a separate-ramekin-of-syrup-with-individual-bites-of-pancake-dipped-into-the-syrup type of family. We want our pancakes to retain their crispy, fried-in-butter edges. Yes, we coat our cast iron with butter before we grill our pancakes because we are American and proud of it. It is a mystery to me why this isn’t more common. It seems obvious.
Anyway, back to my son. Living into my wife and I’s desire to see our kids do even better than we did, our son has taken this pancake-dipping nuance of our family and made it his own. He has a technique (patent pending). It is not sufficient to dip an edge of the pancake into the syrup. For proper pancake consumption, the entire piece of pancake must be submerged, shaken, lifted, turned, and submerged again. Thereupon, it shall be rapidly inserted into a gaping mouth, heedless of any dripping. Maximum dripping is preferred, as this optimizes total syrup volume that accompanies the bite, if one can transfer that bite with sufficient speed and accuracy. Being six, accuracy isn’t his strength, but bro can move pretty quick.
His clothes generally have syrup on them.
However, this syrup method is educational. It is an excellent lesson in displacement. Given that he is using a shallow ramekin that must be filled to the brim to ensure maximum pancake submersion, physics wastes no time pushing syrup over the top of the ramekin as the pancake enters.
Our counter generally has syrup on it.
After only a few bites, there is no longer syrup enough for complete pancake dousing, therefore, syrup must be refilled. Normally, my wife or I can intervene. Not today though.
I left. She left. The syrup was on the counter, directly in front of my son as he executed Project Pancake.
I don’t need to tell you what happens next. You know.
I usually will wait to clean the counter up until I come back in the kitchen for lunch later in the day. I always forget that the ramekin is glued to the counter. Today, it wasn’t the normal thin film of syrup, it was a puddle. It was Lake Maple Syrup. It had currents, tides, and I swear I saw fish swimming in there.
The worst is when we forget that syrup is on the counter, hidden against our patterned granite, and our forearms become stuck to the counter. Or our phones. It is a terrible idea to even consider setting a paper of any importance on our counter. Good luck!
…
Life is nothing but the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Syrup is one of my son’s pleasures, and he sees no reason to not live in it. Literally. He would live in syrup.
But you know what? He gobbles up that pancake and gets to school with a full belly.
…
Special credit goes to Costco and Canada for making this post possible.
Costco for selling food in truly excessive quantities, Canada for engineering one of the wonders of our modern world — the maple syrup supply chain.
Stay tuned for the next episode of our hedonistic adventures with children by subscribing!
I also write about AI, leadership, ethics, and life!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: micheile henderson on Unsplash
