Marek’s heading out for Breakfast. We tend to capitalize the “B” in Breakfast around here.

Note that he has:

1. A jacket, because mom told him to.
2. His favorite fireman boots, which are two sizes too small, but “it’s OK dad, really.”
3. His t-ball baseball pants, with a big rip in the nethers that I didn’t discover until later in the morning.

Here in Tampa it’s a lovely, lovely morning. February, so it’s cold. In the 50s, maybe. On the left is a place I sometimes buy daddy-beverages in quantities of six, and on the right is where Ivo got his first real haircut. In the distance is the city skyline. Just our neighborhood.

This morning we visited the Country Pumpkin Cafe at 2620 E Hillsborough Ave in Tampa. Marek appears to be prying himself out of the car. It’s a family car, and I’ll stand by that statement until a medical professional advises me that the car is stunting my children’s growth.

Says I to Marek, let’s take a picture together and pretend that we are normal and sane and like each other and all that. He concurred in a most dutiful fashion.

And then we got newspapers. Because 1. they’re free and 2. There might be coupons for mom.

I’m teaching Marek to read the paper over breakfast, old-style. He’ll look back fondly on these moments and think, wow, dad was a real dinosaur in 2013, with his newspapers made out of paper and all that.

The Country Pumpkin has an interesting menu. You can get stuff you expect, and stuff you don’t so much expect.

What you may not expect is a “breakfast burger.” Now I can tell you, we’ve been doing this Breakfast Thing for a while. And we’ve never encountered a “breakfast burger” before. Worthy of note.

Hot chocolate for Marek. We had a serious discussion about the relative merits of marshmallows in hot chocolate afterwards. Also note the nice display of coffee creamers. Like a little blossom of creamers. I decided early on, 25 years ago, that I would drink coffee black so that I’d always like what I had and not be too worried about things like “we’re out of creamer.”

Enormous cutlery on the wall, in case an enormous person walks in and orders the whole thing.

“Ma’am, I’ll take a breakfast over here, please.”

And politeness works. Bacon first, as is Marek’s method for approaching bacon and eggs. Afterwards he said, “good bacon.” I didn’t get any. Somehow, the Scarfing of the Marek (much like “the running of the bulls”) prevented me from sampling.

Here are pancakes that made me stop and ponder. Consider. Mutter, “whoah, interesting.”

Not huge, but moderately sized. My hands aren’t exceptionally large, but those fingers can type about a million words a minute. Stand back.

It’s the cook-in banana appearance that has me. This is so neat-looking, and tasty too. I really liked these pancakes.

Five year old with a knife. What? His mom’s not here. So the boy can have a knife.

Syrup on eggs. What, you think I’M going to stop him? We already established that boy has a knife.

More newspaper reading. Something about a “Monster Truck Jam” in Tampa tonight. We discussed the cultural, literary, and metaphysical aspects of a “Monster Truck Jam.”

Around ten clams for a robust breakfast. Note our new business cards for 2013. This is our third set of business cards since we started. That’s kind of weird.

Marek paid the bill. After all, who else would? Ivo? Not here. Didn’t want to come. Pajamas and time with mom, that’s all Ivo wanted this morning.

Note the clean and somewhat spartan interior. And sparse of customers, though it did start filling in as we were leaving. I wasn’t a fan of the televisions, which seemed a bit loud and distracting in the empty dining room.

On our way home, we went by the stadium. Sure enough, there’s Grave Digger, the “most feared monster truck on earth.”

The Country Pumpkin Cafe was a fine experience. The chow was good, especially the banana pancakes. The price was reasonable. The service was good, and even a little sassy. We like sassy. At the end of the morning, we can say that the Country Pumpkin is worth a visit. We’re happy to give “The Pumpkin” a Tampa Bay Breakfast four pancake rating.