Breakfast of Champions

I found the cereal in my office today. Frosted Mini Wheats! Holla!

When I was a baby, I was gigantic. My pediatrician told my parents to feed me whenever I cried. He was wrong. I am convinced that the charming knee fat I carry to this day is a direct cause of this man's negligence.

I soon switched doctors and my parents started a "cry it out" regimen that got me back into happy chubby baby shape as opposed to National Enquirer freakshow shape. But because of my first few months of obesity, my parents decided to treat my childhood diet with kid gloves. This meant no sugar cereal.

My pantry growing up was stocked with Rice Krispies, Life, Cracklin' Oat Bran, Kix and Frosted Mini Wheats. In later years, we also added Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch (yum!), but that's as wild as we got.

Needless to say, I ate a lot of Eggo waffles growing up, and every time I slept at a friend's house, I ate my body weight in Cookie Crisp.

Despite my lack of cereals that turn your milk a nasty color, I have always had a deep appreciation of the cereal mascots and their rich history. I particularly enjoyed the Count Chocula/Franken Berry/Boo Berry gang. I guess all that Scooby-Doo desensitized me to monsters at a young age... and ascots.

Cereal characters today are just not as cool. Sure we still have the old standbys like Lucky Charms and Coco Puffs, but you’d think in 30 years of cereal development we could do a little better than three elderly chefs named Wendell. I weep for our youth.

The upside of the dwindling sugar cereal commercial adventures (ug, remember that smug toucan?) is that my child may not realize how lame it is to eat Honey Nut Cheerios over Sugar Smacks. Until my husband tells her.

CinS was allowed the full monte of sugar cereal growing up and is horrified to hear my parenting belief that our children should be turned on to Honey Wheat Chex over Apple Jacks. I think I am right because that’s how I was raised. CinS thinks he’s right for the same reasons. I’ve also seen video footage of CinS as a child and he was one hyper, annoying little man. I blame the Fruity Pebbles.