There was always something bittersweet about early mornings when I was young. Bitter in the sense that I never got to sleep as late as I wanted too, or that I was still angry because I wasn’t allowed to stay out as late as I wanted to the night before. Still, my memory of Sunday mornings while everyone was still asleep dwell, leaving me with the lingering smell of banana pancakes and bacon and the sound of Led Zeppelin, loud enough so I could hear it, but low enough so nobody was woken up.

Sunday mornings were always routine for me as a child. My father’s creaking footsteps on our hard wooden floor early in the morning would always wake me up. Knowing that, my father would turn the kitchen lights on and watch television until I stumbled into the kitchen still half asleep. Sometimes my father wouldn’t wait for my assistance. He would tip toe as quiet as he could into the kitchen, and I would be woken up by the smell of crisp bacon leaking into my bedroom.

As I got older, my father grew more trusting of me to make my own pancakes, considering I had already spent a while watching him perfect the task. He would sit on the counter next to me and watch me as I fought with the spatula in order to flip the pancake just in time so it wouldn’t burn. My father always knew when to swoop in and lend a hand. Once I got the hang of being able to flip the pancakes just in time, my father taught me how to make pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse - something he saw on our vacation to Disney Land a few year earlier. I began to look forward to my father and I tip toeing around the kitchen early in the morning on his day off. I remember the first time he gave me the spatula to flip a pancake, and I remember the first time I flipped one perfectly.

I remember sometimes in the winter, when our tile floor in the kitchen was too cold to walk on without socks, he would surprise me with homemade hot chocolate, and the mountain of marshmallows he put in my cup when I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t have known it then, but those days were the most heartwarming highlights of my childhood. Though being able to make the perfect pancake probably isn’t a life saving skill, I know I’ll always remember how its done, and I’ll never forget standing in my kitchen with my father singing Led Zeppelin and flipping pancakes.