There is No Cereal.

I feel something. Something is stirring inside of me. It's in that place in my chest where all the feelings go, where my bosom burns. It's a feeling like I am doing the next right thing. It feels like peace. It feels like contentment. It feels like purpose. I think this is what joy feels like. The feeling sprouted when I decided to cook better meals for my family. I started making whole wheat, sourdough hearth bread. It's all we ever want to eat when it's around and it's life changing when it is lathered in butter. And it makes us feel good. So I started making more things from scratch with whole foods and I have felt this goodness after every meal. I feel full, but not at all miserable, and my taste buds are completely satisfied. I didn't consciously notice it at first, but I sat back for a moment and thought about what it felt like to eat processed food, and I remembered craving more and more and more and more and it's like I couldn't stop. I kept putting my hand back into the package, or going back for a fifth slice of frozen pizza and I was left feeling sick, full to the brim, and somehow hungry for more. I didn't eat like this all the time, but that third kid introduced me to a world of quick, lackluster, yet inexplicably addicting meals. Just a couple of weeks of eating real food has changed me and as I reread that sentence it doesn't feel like enough to describe this change, this feeling. My energy well is bottomless. I spent the last year (let's be honest... the last 20 years) fighting the afternoon lull. The fatigue that numbed me into a motivation-less fog, that suction-cupped me to the couch with my phone in my face. But I feel so good now that I can just keep going. It is definitely the eating of the whole foods that is giving me the stamina I need, but it is also the preparing of the whole foods that is giving me the thrust to do more. Everything is easier now that I am cooking from scratch and that sounds so counter-intuitive, but when you make a meal that involves pots and pans and counter-space, you have to clean it up before the next meal, otherwise you won't have any pots or pans or counter-space. So my kitchen is always clean. It was honestly harder to clean it consistently before because I would just microwave plates and bowls and those few plates in the sink turned into ALL the plates in the sink, and then when I would make a more labor-intensive meal there would be no plates and the counters would be sticky from not wiping up after every meal because...why bother?  Couple that with the suction-cup fatigue and it honestly made it harder to stay on top of things. But now, when my belly is full, and my appetite satiated with real food, and the kitchen is clean, the motivation is there to straighten the front room. And then I encourage the kids to tidy up their toys. And as I am carrying Sylvia's pants back to her room (she hates pants), I pass the bathroom and pick up the towels Sarah has pulled onto the floor and wipe up the sink. There is just so much momentum and it starts with breakfast. When we wake up in the morning, and I lament that there is not a quick bowl of cereal to be poured and my baby birds are squawking at me for food, I am forced out from under my fluffy brown blanket and into the kitchen. Sylvia wants eggs. And oatmeal with cinnamon and diced apples. And bananas. She has a hearty appetite in the morning. Scarlett just wants some fruit and homemade toast with butter (which Sylvia usually sneaks a bite of). Sarah also wants the oatmeal, which I usually end up feeding her on the couch because... I like to eat on the couch... so she squishes in between my ribs and the cushion and I spoon-feed her. Everyone gets fed and when they are fed they feel happy and they go play and the TV doesn't get turned on and I don't mindlessly put my face in my phone like I have done for the past year because...there is no cereal.