Milk, Coffee and Donuts

Milk for her, coffee for me and donuts for us both. It had been a couple years since I'd eaten a slimming donut, but since I watched a friend of mine, a much thinner friend, eat a couple of chocolate donuts over the weekend, I've been thinking the dreaded, "Should I or shouldn't I?" It sounded pretty good and why not, I'd waited a couple years!

So my three year old daughter, infant son and I all went to the grocery store for onion soup mix to make a roast and of course, that turned into eight more items that we suddenly "needed." Then my son fell asleep in the stroller and all the possibilities that accompany the freedom of a sleeping baby came into view. I decided, along with the risk of the eggs I'd bought being unrefrigerated for too long (according to my mother), to stop at the bakery donut case.

I've never been too interested in donut cases, unless they have a rarely seen cream puff, but the Long Johns have always reminded me of being little and my brother taking me to the bakery donut case for a Long John while my parents drank coffee and visited with neighbors after church.

Anyway, my daughter picked out two donuts, one for her and one for "Daddy" based on the color of sprinkles or ribbons of icing. So without bursting her choice bubble, she wound up with a red-sprinkled Bavarian Cream donut and blue-ribboned custard-filled donut. Against my hopes, I also ended up with a decorative blue-ribboned Long John, although I'd prefer just plain caramel. But that's me, kind of simple when it comes to desserts.

So we found our way over to the very nice cafeteria area (honestly, one of the nicest I've seen!) with a small glass of milk, a Hazelnut coffee, a sleeping baby and unrefrigerated eggs(scream!). So now I'm watching my daughter very neatly take a timid bite out of this gigantic donut, with the determination and fear of finishing the whole thing. She only ate half, but I could see it in her eyes, she was willing!

Through her making milk bubbles with her straw and my realizing that a Long John is a huge donut and how in the world did I eat an entire one as a kid(?!), I realized I was looking at myself as a child. It wasn't uncommon to sit quietly with my parents and grandparents as they drank their coffee and a couple of donuts were cut up into quarters for all of us to share. Speaking of, I'm sure my grandpa was looking down from heaven and saying, "Don't you want to cut that?," meaning, "Cut that into four pieces!" Now that I think of it, everything seemed to be made into quarters. Paper, food, blankets, trash; I actually still fold my food wrappers and trash into quarters and neatly throw them away. I don't know why, there's just something uncivilized to me in wadding stuff up. So anyway!

As I was saying, there I was, realizing that as small as the act was, my daughter and I were carrying on a tradition. It really doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting there, smelling Folgers while eating a donut and drinking cold milk with my own family. But here I am, thirty years later, looking at my very own daughter sharing small traditions that I remember experiencing as a child. And I wonder how she'll remember these little moments filled with donuts, milk and coffee, and if she'll attach a sense of fondness to those memories as I have. I hope she does, because those small traditions that I hadn't even realized were "traditions" accompany some of the best memories of my childhood. And I'd give anything to have her experience that.