The Breakfast Inspection

Can this be true? Titus' normal 'second breakfast' (in Germany, people don't believe that kids can make it through the morning without a hefty snack - when I was at school, we got a bottle of luke-warm milk!) consists - or at least did consist - of four rice cakes, sandwiched together with cottage cheese. On the day in question, he also had some slices of red pepper in a little tupperware box. His glum face when I picked him up told me that something was afoot. Yes, a glove puppet tiger, aka the hand of his fierce and devout kindergarten teacher, had carried out an inspection on the second breakfasts that morning, allocating points (2 maximum) for the healthiest. Titus got a grudging half a point. I have to admit that I couldn't blog about this straight away because I was seething. How can a snack be healthier than that? Maybe I have missed the point, because Titus told me the only boy to get 2 points was someone with a ham, cheese and butter sandwich. Nevertheless, I decided to tackle fierce and devout teacher about this yesterday. I rehearsed umpteen scenarios in my head beforehand. (I seem to do this a lot these days.) But when the time came, Titus put a restraining hand on my leg and whispered, please don't do it now Mummy. There was terror in his eyes. I relented. And today we had the rice cakes for breakfast at home and took a big fat sandwich to kindergarten instead. When in Rome...