Frost Makes Tea

Since we started sleeping with our bedroom doors shut, we have been getting at least an hour more sleep every morning. I discovered that Kitty Haiku had been waking the kids with stepping and mewing.

Now, Frost is the first to get up and I hear him clattering around in the kitchen making strange breakfasts which are more to his liking than those I provide. Recently, he has been eating humous and Mary's Gone Crackers for breakfast followed up by ovaltine in milk. Other days, he has toast and honey WITH NO BUTTER, rice crackers and peanut butter or a peanut-butter banana.

This morning I came in to find him dipping biscotti in a cup of Chamomile tea with milk.

"I made my own tea." he said.

"Great" I said. "I guess you wanted a biscotti?" [We made them last night at his request]

"I had a hard time figuring out how to make tea," he added, not yet done "until I discovered that there are instructions on the tea box."

"You needed instructions?" To me, brewing tea is a self evident process much like adding milk to cereal.

"Yes, first I thought I should pour boiling water in a cup and then dip the teabag in up and down and up and down. Then I thought I should put the teabag in the teakettle and turn it on to boil it. Then when I'd pour it out it would be tea."

"No, don't do that!"

"But then I found the instructions. It says: 'BRING WATER TO A BOIL. POUR OVER TEA BAG, STEEPING 4-5 MINUTES FOR THE FLAVOR TO UNFOLD COMPLETELY'. So I did that."

He finished his mug of tea with a flourish. Well satisfied.

"You did very well. Now that you like to make tea you can choose any one of my teas in the cupboard. There is Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green Tea, Mint. You make them all the same way. Or you can use my little teapot to brew in."

"CAFFEINE!"

"Yes, they have a bit of caffeine but that's okay"

Frost is enamored of the idea of drinking coffee, because, much like alcohol, it is a forbidden and unknown substance. I buy him the occasional green-tea latte from Starbucks and he feels The Man.