The Tale of Two Breakfasts

Brace yourself people – this one is a doozy.

My youngest son is absolutely too smart for his own good.
I know this. I’ve known this.
When you have a kid that constantly surprises you with his clever antics, you learn to expect the unexpected. He keeps me on my toes with his daily happenings.

Oh yeah – he’s 5.
Well.
5-going-on-40.
He’s also the youngest of my 3 boys.
I blame birth order for how quick and unpredictable he is.
When you’re the youngest, you survive. You’re scrappy.
That’s what he is. He’s like a smart, scrappy little cookie.
Moving on.

Last week we got a letter from his teacher letting us know that he is taking too long to eat breakfast and it’s causing him not to finish his morning work in the classroom.

Ummm… what?

You can imagine my confusion with the words breakfast and school…considering I feed him breakfast every day before he leaves for school. And he eats it. Why would he have breakfast in his classroom? He doesn’t take it with him from home.

So I did some digging.
Parental investigation, if you will.
From his older brothers… obviously.
When you need the dirt, ask the siblings.
They’ll jump at the chance to bus roll the little one.

Here’s what I found out.

My 5-year-old. That’s one year older than 4. Barely old enough to spell his own name. Has been getting off the bus at school, leaving his 9-year-old brothers, walking himself down to the cafeteria, and helping himself to a second breakfast.

Every day.
EVERY SINGLE DAY since August and we had no idea.

This little dude is in Kindergarten! Before you get worked up about him walking himself, the school is set up like an elementary school campus. We live in Florida so the middle “quad” area is outside. There are teachers everywhere. It is very safe. Other kids get breakfast. They eat in the cafeteria.

Not my little “do-it-myself-Kindergartner”.
He navigates his own way to find the breakfast, pick it out, go through the line, and take it back to his classroom.

And if we’re being honest, I’m not entirely convinced he’s not getting the breakfast just to procrastinate so he doesn’t have to do the morning work.

He’s not hungry.
HE JUST ATE.

He beat the system!
Of course he did.
Of course he figured out how to manipulate all of us.
He’s basically like a tiny ninja.
A ninja who has been eating 2 breakfasts for 7 months.

When asked about it he looked at me with big eyes and said, and I quote:
“What? They have food there. Someone has to eat it.”

In other news… she also wrote a note about how enjoys adult interactions too much and leaves to use the restroom 8x a day. She’s sweet. I don’t have the heart to tell her she is getting outsmarted by a 5-year-old.

For the record, tiny ninja is very well behaved and gets very good grades.
That does not make him any less rascally.
He’s a cute little turkey.

Thought you all would enjoy the tale of two breakfasts.
So the next time one of your kids does something smarter than you would ever think of… you now know you’re not alone.

Love & Hugs,
Nicki, Momming all the Boys