Super easy breakfast in a hurry

   




     So I don't know about you, but I think one of the hardest things to do is to get out of bed and out the door in the morning. I'm exhausted just dragging myself out of bed and then my eyes are constantly on the clock, making sure that I'm getting each step of my morning routine done on time so I'm not late for work. I wish that mornings could be more relaxed, slower and more enjoyable. I wish we could have more little morning moments like this...

    But the reality is that it's tough to get up with energy, enthusiasm for the day and a smile on my face. I'm trying to learn from Mya on how to start my days right. She wakes up ready to run, ready to laugh at everything we do and ready to start her wonderful day without a care in the world. It's like she wakes up every day thinking that it's the best day that she's ever had (and it's only just begun!). I'm working on getting as good at mornings as she is. She's an expert.

    She can do things like take her toothbrush and her dad's belt and find such fun and joy in them both. Somehow dragging a belt around is simply hilarious. Literally every morning it's just as funny to her as the day before. I need to find something to do every morning that brings me that much joy and laughter. I'm working on it.

       The days before I started back to work after being on mat leave I thought a lot about mornings. I was so stressed about the idea of getting out of the door on time, because now all of a sudden it wasn't just me who had to be ready. I had a 15month old who also had to be ready, fed, dressed, diapered, bag packed, loved on, bundled up and put in her car seat (which usually involves at least a bit of kicking and screaming) before even leaving the driveway for work. I also had to leave enough time to drop her off at daycare (which is thankfully in my school, but I still didn't want to just  drop her off and run. I wanted to hold onto her as long as I could before I stepped out the door and left her for the day).

     So Terry and I sat down days before I started back and we actually made a morning plan so that we both weren't stressed about getting out the door. I kind of like mornings now...I don't love them, but I like them (sometimes). I like that there's no thought to it anymore since we both know what we need to do (and when/by what time we need to be doing things). We help eachother, we get our stuff done and we've learned to do most of the work the night before (ie. setting out Mya's clothes, our own clothes and making our lunches). 

    In a nutshell, here is how our mornings usually go:
    
1) wake up by our own personal (yet very cute) alarm clock. She's up around 6:15am (or 5:00am on weekends when we can technically sleep in of course).

2) Terry gets up and goes straight downstairs and makes Mya's scrambled eggs, cuts up her fruit and gets her bib and everything out. I go in and change her diaper, get her dressed and get my morning cuddles.

3) I drop her off in her highchair for breakfast with Terry, and I go shower and get completely ready. When I'm done, I go eat breakfast with Mya on my lap while Terry goes and showers and gets ready.

4) We both bundle Mya up, get her bag of cloth diapers packed for daycare and head out the door together. Oh and of course throw in the occasional Mya meltdown, forgotten lunch and "I really have nothing to wear" disaster.

So..seems pretty easy peasy most mornings. However, I thought one of the things that could cut down on our morning rush even more was if Mya's breakfast was already made. Since she eats eggs every morning it means there's always time needed to actually make the eggs, and then you're now stuck with cleaning a pan/spatula every morning. So I decided to find a way to pre-make all her eggs in one day so our mornings could be a little slower and more enjoyable. Welcome to mini omelets in a muffin tin.
  
Here is how I did it:

1) grab about 16 eggs, crack them into a bowl and mix' em up with a fork.

2) add whatever you'd like, or nothing at all (I just added cheese and diced green peppers)

If you don't have a chopper...YOU NEED ONE. This is the best thing in the world. Throw some green peppers (or anything else you want chopped up) and with one push you've got beautiful diced food. Brilliant! I use mine all the time (and conveniently, you can chop up anything using only one hand when you have a baby on your hip).

3) butter/spray your muffin tins REALLY REALLY well and using a soup ladle, pour the eggs in.

4) put in oven at 350 for about 20-25mins and watch as they puff up beautifully!

5) let cool, remove from pan and put them in the freezer. I put each one individually in a ziplock bag to ensure that they didn't all freeze together, but I'm sure there are other ways to freeze them as well.

Now all we have to do is take a muffin egg out of the freezer the night before, heat it up in the morning and serve it to Mya for the quickest breakfast ever. No work, no mess,
no fuss = more time and a little bit of a slower, more enjoyable morning. Hallelujah.