What is it with children and Cheerios?

My 6-year-old eats them, my baby attempts to eat them, they both spill them and play with them and throw them around. Meanwhile, my cupboard is full of them, my floor is littered with them, the backseat of my car is covered in them, and I’m constantly stepping on them.

I bet you are too. Because when you have kids, you have Cheerios. There’s no way around it.

My sons and I bond over a lot of things. Star Wars, superheroes, not listening to Mom and Buried, pooping our pants. Unfortunately, breakfast is not something we typically bond over, and that’s my fault.

I stink at breakfast. I don’t just mean I stink at making it – although definitely that too – I mean I stink at eating it. I don’t eat it. Not very often. It’s not a priority for me, which is ironic, considering how much of a priority Mom and Buried and I make it for our kids. Not only is starting the day with a full stomach good for them, it keeps them from being hangry, and that is essential, because a hangry kid is even less fun to be around than a kid who isn’t hangry.

To that end, a bowl of cereal is often the easiest thing to make, and in my house, cereal usually means Cheerios. If you want me to eat breakfast, you better put some chocolate in it, which is why I’m partial to the chocolate Cheerios (which they didn’t even have when I was a kid!), unlike Detective Munch, who refuses to eat sweets for breakfast and therefore prefers the brand new Very Berry Cheerios. Which is great, because they taste – and smell – so fruity, I don’t have to waste time chopping up and tossing strawberries into his cereal just to make sure he doesn’t get scurvy. Dad win!

Cheerios are extra convenient, since they’re one food both my kids love and both my kids can actually eat, even the one who only has a few teeth! The Hammer loves when I pour some Cheerios on his tray – and not just because he enjoys throwing them all over the floor. (Just mostly because he enjoys throwing all over the floor. Which makes the Cheerios hashtag #berrieseverywhere painfully accurate.)

Annoyingly, I found out my baby likes the Very Berry Cheerios hard way, kind of like Simon over at DadLabs. I’ve started eating them after he goes to bed. (Cereal is totally an all-day food get off me!)

I have a six-year-old, so I know that this is just the beginning of the new kid bogarting my meals. Which is fine. We’re bonding! Not the best kind of bonding, maybe, but it’s better than bonding over cleaning up all the Cheerios he’s constantly dropping everywhere. (I keep telling myself that cleaning up after my kids counts as bonding, if only so I don’t start screaming at the lazy slobs! Flimsy? Maybe. Sanity-saving? Who knows, but I’ll try anything!)

When we’re hopping into the car to run errands or head to the park or go to Grandma’s, I’ll often give Detective Munch a snack cup full of Cheerios, then spend the drive yelling at him to stop spilling them everywhere. BONDING!

When The Hammer is hungry and needs something to actually chomp on (as opposed to sucking down a smoothie pouch or some baby gruel), I’ll spread a buffet of Very Berry Cheerios on his high chair tray and watch as he successfully ingests three out of every ten whole grain circles, then get on my knees and pick up the shrapnel as more debris rains on me from above. (More like Dad and Berried, amirite?) BONDING!

Maybe I should take a cue from my man Papa Does Preach and start making my kids eat all their meals in the tub, just to minimize the clean up.

It’s a great idea!

That way we can bond over breakfast without Daddy blowing a gasket at the mess! Instead, I’ll blow a gasket when my kids start washing their Cheerios down with bath water. BONDING!

Disclosure: I have partnered with Life of Dad and Cheerios for this campaign, but my opinions are my own, except the fact that cereal is an all-day food because that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.