As a child, some of my fondest memories centered around food, as I’m sure the same goes for most of you. Kraft dinner, cooked to perfection. Cinnamon toast and hot chocolate. Warm pancakes with butter and brown sugar.

And cereal, specifically the sugary ones. I’m talkin’ about Frosted Flizzakes. Froot Loopers. Corn Pips. Captain Craunch. Honeycombs. And the list literally goes on. And as an adult, though A) I don’t eat cereal very often and when I do B) I’ve graduated to the grown up ones like Harvest Quaker Crunch or Just Right, I still do enjoy the occasional bowl of the sugar variety. I will never officially grow up, lest we forget.

Then there’s my daughters, Lel and Lin. They will quite literally enter a world of crime to get their cereal. Point in case, here we go.

A couple days ago, I let them come with me to Stuporstore and while we were there in our stupor, I allowed them to pick one cereal apiece. What they chose matters not but since you’re dying to know, Lel picked Honey Nut Cheerios and Lin chose Nesquik. From prior experience, quite often the day after inspection results in like 75% of the contents consumed which does NOT impress Papa. There was a period of time where I would put just enough in a baggie for 1 serving and refill daily. Then I guess I got either too trusting or lazy (or simply yearned for what I and most consider normalcy) and went back to leaving the full box out.

Anywho. I say all that because the other day I decided to go back to the baggie scenario and they knew about it. 1 bag of Cheerios for Lel and uno bag of Nesquik for Lin. The next morning, great success or so I assumed. Fast effward to this morning as I’m in my robe making a proverbial feast of cheesy eggs, bacon, sausages, C-buns and P-cakes. I reach waaaay up to where I had hidden the 2 cereal boxes and they feel light as heck and I’m livid. L-I-V-D livid.

The thing about my girls is even though they theoretically know better, they don’t do something devious then lie about it or hide it or even stress about it. They simply do what they want and then continue with life. During confrontation as I’m questioning and scolding them, Lin seems upset for letting me down moreso than exemplifying bad behaviour while Lel usually pleads the fifth, as though none of this applies to her. When directly questioned and demanding a response, she’ll give a timid one word answer. It’s all so unnerving and being used to it, I want to pull what’s left of my grays out.

So what do I do? I keep on keepin’ yawn. And on. I can only be the bad policeman for some of the time. I take away, feel pissy, a day goes by, then I jump back onto normalcy, hoping something has changed and the things will be better. And they are.. until the next episode in a day or three.