A Not So-Perfect Pancake Essay -- Personal Narrative Family Essays

Not So-Perfect Pancake The form of the pancake my mother made for me every morning was always unpredictable. Sometimes, they would come out perfectly, smooth and round with sprinkles of love blended in. Other times, they would be mushy, uneven shapes that seemed to pile onto the plate. It was just like life, sometimes things would go as planned without any wrinkles, smooth, and other times I would need a steamy iron to get rid of the bunching wrinkles. Overall though, the pancakes symbolized my mother's loyalty to me and served as a bonding tool. Waking up at 6:00 was never something I enjoyed. In fact, it was more of a wrestling match between my alarm clock and me. Staggering out of bed, I would somehow manage to drag myself into the shower and progress to drying my hair and finding clothes, on a good day they would even match. Then, I would routinely plop down onto the red and white-checkered cushion that covered my favorite stool, and eat the breakfast my mother made for me. It was always the same, a single chocolate chip pancake with whip cream on top. Why I chose a chocolate chip pancake and not something else like poached eggs with biscuits, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was because I loved how the chocolate chips would melt into the rest of the pancake adding a semi sweet taste to a normally bland breakfast, or it could be blamed on my pickiness as an eater. Once I found something I liked, I rarely strayed from it. More practically though, it was because my mother could prepare the batter the night before making it quicker and easier to cook in the morning. During the times I was on schedule, a rarity for me in the morning, I would slowly savor each bite and talk to my half asleep mother about little things: the fight... ...help of my family and the return of my sister it was able to transform into a perfect delectable and delicious pancake. And why did my mother wake up to make me one every morning? I heard her talking on the phone to my brother. Living in Alaska, there is a five-hour time change, and he called one morning expecting to leave a message on the answering machine. Instead he got my mothers dreary voice. I could assume what he was saying on the other line, "Mom, why are you up so early?" She replied with "making Helena breakfast". He obviously questioned the importance of that because the next words out of her mouth were "if I have to sacrifice an hour and a half of sleep to make sure she eats and starts the day off right then I will". It had been five years since I overcame my eating disorder and still my mother proved to me that she never breaks her promises.