Weekend Cereal

Like most households, my family looks forward to weekends. It means they get to have weekend cereal!

I dubbed sugar-coated cereals “weekend cereals” a long time ago when I made it a rule one summer that my kids couldn’t eat sugar cereal for breakfast every day. I’ve always felt like the first meal of the day was too special and important to be wasted on cereals that weren’t very satiating and lacked nutrition.

I’m a bit of an obsessive mom when it comes to feeding my family breakfast. Good nutrition is important and a hot breakfast helps kids in their studies during the day. My breakfast-loving conscience won’t allow me to feed my kids sugary cold cereal or pop tarts for breakfast on school days.

During the school week I make my family a hot breakfast but relent on the weekends and allow them the freedom to choose cold cereal instead. But there are mornings when I crave a certain kind of cereal. That’s why I wait until the kids have left for the bus before I have a bowl of sugar high with milk.

Call me a hover mother if you must, but I still regulate what my kids eat. When it comes to eating cereal, my kids haven’t figured out how to help themselves before I find out what they’ve chosen to eat, so they still ask me if they can have weekend cereal before they dish up. Sometimes they’re denied but other times I’ll suggest a better cereal choice before giving in.

At our house, the popular weekend cereal choices are:

1. Captain Crunch
2. Coco Puffs, Coco Roos, or Coco Pebbles
3. Lucky Charms
4. Honey Nut Cheerios
5. Frosted Mini-Wheats
6. Frosted Flakes
7. Golden Grahams or Cinnamon Toast Crunch
8. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cereal

My kids and husband always request their favorite cereals when they know I’m going grocery shopping but they don’t always get what they want. I shop strictly from sale flyers and only buy weekend cereal that’s on sale. I think paying $4-5 dollars for a box of cereal is ridiculous, especially when it only lasts two days, but if their favorite cereal is on sale, they’re in luck. So, as the saying goes at our house, “You git what you git and you don’t throw a fit” when it comes to getting their favorite weekend cereal.

Weekend cereals have also become the new sweet treat at our house. A lot of times my family eats weekend cereal dry as a snack or as part of a sack lunch. I’ll allow it for that because I figure it’s better than them asking for candy and they’re satisfied with being allowed something sweet.

Some people go out for breakfast or  make a big breakfast at home on weekends. We just eat a bowl of cereal.