School Mornings of Cereal and Bed Head

Morning in America.

They wake up pink and raw, as if just born, rubbing their eyes and looking around and examining the planet for maybe the very first time.

“Who are you?” one of them asks.

“I’m your dad,” I say.

This puzzles the boy for a moment. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. He just looks up at me and squints. The sun isn’t up, and still he squints.

“Oh,” he says, then rubs his belly and goes back to bed.

“Where you going?” I ask.

And he mumbles something. It’s a morning mumble, spoken with his back to me, through teeth that are still asleep. I never understand the morning mumble. For years I have heard it. No capiche.

“Nice to see you,” I say, as the boy staggers back to bed.

In a few minutes, another kid shows up. This one doesn’t look much better than the first. Her hair is bent. Apparently, it bent in her sleep. It may be permanently bent.

“I hate my hair,” my lovely and patient older daughter says, looking in the hallway mirror.

“You have beautiful hair,” I say.

“That’s what dads always say,” she says.

She stands in front of the mirror, pulling on the hair, then hammering it with the palm of her hand, trying to force it into place, then deciding that it needs to go to the body shop, where it will be heated, lubed and straightened into submission.

“I’ll be in the bathroom,” she says.

“Good luck,” I say.

*

And onward breakfast goes, never with a regular heartbeat, almost as if it’s being invented every day, with new participants and new procedures.

Morning in America. It’s not for everyone.

“Oatmeal is ready!” I yell, and right away they don’t come running.

“Oatmeal!” I say again.

Breakfast is a meal that even a dad can make, thanks to space-age technology and mothers who work, which has created a huge market for quickie breakfasts.

In the beginning, there was Tang. Now there are all these other magic powders. Everything comes in little packets. You pour in some boiling water and the oatmeal sets up in less than a minute. Easy as mortar mix. Only stronger.

“Good oatmeal today,” I yell, as if any one batch is different from the last, as if it isn’t created in some lab by NASA workers flash-drying it with liquid nitrogen or something.

“This oatmeal looks funny,” the boy says, finally emerging from the bedroom to examine the oatmeal.

“You’re welcome,” I say.

“Where’s the Laker score?” the boy asks, staring at the newspaper.

“Lakers didn’t play,” I say.

“Yeah, but where’s the score?”

The boy reads the paper like a retired person, slowly and carefully, getting mad at the stuff he doesn’t agree with, growling as he chews.

“Lakers,” he says. “Where’s the Lakers?”

“I don’t think they played,” I say again.

“That’s no excuse,” he says.

One by one, they come to the table, their faces still a little saggy with sleep, like faces low on air.

In a matter of minutes, they begin to fill, these faces. After a while, they’re full of air.

“I’m getting my hair cut,” my older daughter says. “Like Lisa Kudrow.”

“She in your class?” I ask.

“No, Lisa Kudrow,” she says. “From ‘Friends.’ ”

“Oh, her,” I say.

“Like a bob,” she says, cupping her hair to the side of her head.

“He in your class?”

“You know, a bob,” she says.

“From ‘Friends’?” I ask.

“Never mind,” she says.

And just when you think it’s safe, out of a hallway comes another kid.

“I hate my hair,” the little girl says.

“You have beautiful hair,” I say.

“That’s what dads always say,” my older daughter assures her.

“Where’s the Laker score?” the boy growls.

They are all at the breakfast table now, which is a happy place, a bountiful place, crowded with oatmeal and freeze-dried pastries and cereal that costs five bucks a box. They are happy to start another day at this table. Happy just to be together.

“Quit breathing so loud,” one of them grumbles.

“I’m not breathing,” someone says.

“I’m not breathing either,” someone else says.

“It’s OK to breathe,” I say.

“Time to go!” their mother yells, sprinting for the door.

And into the car the two oldest ones go, slinging backpacks filled with bricks, careful not to hit anyone. Because people don’t kill people. Backpacks do.

“Careful with those backpacks,” I say.

“Bye, Dad,” one of them mutters.

“Yeah, bye,” the other one says.

They sit stone-faced in their seats, hair drying, backpacks at their feet. Next to them, their sack lunches crinkle and crunch.

“See ya,” I say, smiling and waving.

As the car pulls from the driveway, someone waves. Not a great wave, just a half wave, just to let me know they are alive and safe, just to let me know they survived another morning in America.

“Their hair looks nice,” the little girl says as we wave goodbye.

“Their hair looks very nice,” I say.

And off to school they go.

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.