Treat Cereal

Growing up we had two categories of cereal – “Breakfast cereal” and “Treat cereal.”  Just like it sounds, treat cereal was the good kind.  How did my Mom distinguish - the ingredients list.  Any cereal that listed sugar in the first three ingredients was a “treat.”  It didn’t leave a lot for breakfast, but we managed:  Cheerios, Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies, the dreaded Grape Nuts, or my favorites – Crispex and Kix.  And the rest we could have for afternoon snack or special treat times; there lied my other favorites: – Frosted Flakes, Corn Pops, Lucky Charms (before they added more marshmallow shapes than there are rainbow colors), and my all-time favorite – Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. 

Breakfast is different for me these days.  Aside from the fact that in this day and age it seems no cereal has sugar in any lower than the top two ingredients, cereal is different in that it has taken on new meaning, become symbolic.  After becoming a mother, and especially a mother of two, who continues to work full-time, I became a woman who has spent many a morning having to choose between eating breakfast and getting a shower (and occasionally when I did get both it was because I was choosing the secret ‘get to work late’ third option).  The last several-months-to-two-years have included a routine of tears, choices, frantic running around, watching while my husband and son ate together without me, and a grumbling stomach when I get to work each morning.  I struggled to watch my family get to sit down and have breakfast, while I was stuck pumping and trying to get myself and/or the diaper bag ready in time, carried through with the simple hopes that I would get a granola bar from my desk drawer when I arrived at work, and that maybe tomorrow would be different; maybe tomorrow I would get breakfast.  Instead of having “treat cereal” as a special snack, I found myself viewing any cereal as a special treat.  It has been a long-haul, one in which cereal became symbolic to me of my hopes, and sacrifices, as a mom – what I had to give up for them, and what I wished I didn’t have to.  A long-haul in which morning after morning, I looked at the box of cereal, and wished. 

Recently our family did a ‘re-structuring.’  We have now worked out a morning schedule and new task assignments, which have allowed our mornings to go a bit more smoothly and allow more time for everyone.  The best part is that it gives us more (lower-stress) time together as a family.  This is what I have wished for, what I always wish for. 

But I will admit that a close runner-up, the second best part, is that now I get breakfast! 

This past week, I made the comment after having to choose between the big bowl of Lucky Charms (with the additional darn un-identifiable marshmallows that I still don’t believe belong in the box) and the bigger bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch that my husband had poured for our breakfasts, “Mommy’s ‘treat cereal’ upbringing has definitely gone out the window!” 

Yes, times have changed.  From cereal categories as a child, to longing for any cereal as a stressed-out mom, to a big ol’ bowl of sugar.   From having to choose whether breakfast was the ‘treat’ I would get at all, to choosing which big bowl of treat cereal I would devour.  Thank goodness for changes. 

But the truth is that I would gladly go back to any of the most simple of cereals with sugar at the bottom of the list, including the dreaded Grape Nuts, just for the time with my family at the breakfast table.  For me, that is the true treat of cereal!    

When other parents take the words right out of my mouth (and heart)

I want to point out a wonderful post on "Mothering Spirit," one of the blogs I enjoy.  This post (other than the caffeine...and unfortunately, a few days a week the shower part too), could easily have been written by me, as it stated my sentiments exactly.  

Check it out:  Conversations with myself, 2:00am & 8:00am  

Another perfectly-stated sentiment can be found in the comments (thanks to my deprivation-partner for pointing this one out to me):  

“Everyone should have kids. They’re the greatest joy in the world. But they’re also terrorists. You’ll realize this as soon as they’re born and they start using sleep deprivation to break you.” – Ray Romano

Here's to all you other Mom's and Dad's out there who know what Ray, Mothering Spirit and I are talking about!    

"Can I get your boogers?" and other things I never thought I'd say

Can I get your boogers?

That’s an excellent sneeze!

Sit down or you don’t get Beluga.

My baby speaks Japanese.

I’ve got a date with the little man. 

Sit down, go bump.

Except at night she turns evil.

I really need to pump!

Awesome – blueberry-colored poops!

Sorry, Daddy can’t drop you right now.

Our toothbrush does not go in the potty!

Oh, he just got himself stuck again somehow.

I think there was some mix-up at birth – twice.

Hey naked boy, come back! 

Rolly-Polly bonked her head.  

Just because he’s a whale, doesn’t mean he gets a bath. 

You’re the smelliest thing I’ve ever seen without poop.

Ok, you can stop kissing your sister.

I think I need a drink.

You only fell out once, good job Little Mister! 

Don’t touch me for three years.

Throwing golf balls is mean. 

Can you say “hey baby?”

I thank God for Poop-a-Loop and Lilly Bean!

Oh, the topics and the nonsense,

“Did you put the crayons in the vent?”

Who knew I was capable of such things,

The vocab of a parent.

“Can you find my belly button?”

So many things I never thought I’d say.

“Do-dee-do-dee-woof-woof.”

I wouldn’t have it any other way!!  

PS. I encourage you other parents out there to write your own verse and post it in the comments or email it to me.  Join in the fun of unique parent vocab!  

Thanks Mr. Laakso

I always wanted to be a writer.

In third grade I wrote a play called “Raining in Half the Sky.” I thought it was science fiction; but later learned that rain really can be falling on one house in the neighborhood and not the other – something about clouds, who knew?! My teacher at the time, Mr. Laakso, was generous enough, despite its lack-of-genius, to let me use free time to bring some of my classmates into the empty classroom next door to practice the play. We never got to perform it. Probably for the best (although I think we did perform one I wrote about dogs - strange.) But that didn’t stop me from writing and rehearsing the stories my young mind had waiting to burst forth for the world to share. Mr. Laakso only taught in our school that one year (too bad, he was my favorite teacher in elementary school); but when he came back for a visit a few years later he asked me if I was still writing stories, which of course I was.

In sixth grade we were supposed to write a page on where we saw ourselves in the future. I wrote that I’d be a journalist. Of course I spelled about half the words wrong – maybe that’s part of why I never made it as a writer. I held onto that dreamed-of career all through high school. My Mom saved that 6th grade paper I'd written, framed it and set it out at my high school graduation party. It didn’t, however, get set out at my college graduation, since that’s not what my degree ended up being. I’m not sure what happened that moved me away from that field, but I haven’t moved away from the desire to be a writer.

And although I haven’t taken a writing class since high school “technical writing” (which was kind of a joke to be quite honest, and I don’t even remember actually writing anything for it), I am actually pretty good at writing. I’ve received numerous compliments on my writing over the years: a Communications Director asked after I turned in my first-ever press release if I do this a lot (yea me); I’ve had multiple professors in both undergrad and grad school ask if they could keep a copy of my paper for future examples (way to go Kateri); I almost always Aced essay tests (kudos); and I was told to submit one of my papers to a theology school journal once (yippee); I even got asked by a professor my first year in grad school if it was actually my paper or if it was ‘borrowed’ (hurray…errr, wait…what?!) I was quite furious at that accusation; it may be the most offended I’d ever been up to that point. But I have since come to see it as a compliment (and subsequently that was the same professor who later told me to submit a work to the journal…hmmm). Yes, I can write, and write well.

The problem is I don’t want to write that kind of works. I don’t want to write scholarly papers. I want to write REAL life! I want to be the kind of writer who tells stories that make others fall in love with being a mother like I have; who writes poems that make others mourn for people they never knew; things that are worded in such a unique way that make people put my quotes on the bottom of their email signatures. Unfortunately, I’m not as good at that kind of writing.

Lately I have again been feeling the pull (or push) to write. I miss writing poems; I miss writing in my journal; I miss writing stories; I miss being able to tell Mr. Laakso that I’m still at it! I hear about those ‘professional bloggers’ and I think, ‘Why couldn’t that be me?’ I re-read Robert Fulghum’s “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” (my favorite and one of my most re-read books, filled with short stories and random messages, that if books can be, this one is my “idol”), and I think ‘Why couldn’t I publish something like that?’ I (once again) make the New Years Resolution to WRITE MORE, and I think ‘Why did I fail at that last year?’ I feel the urge to be a writer, and I think ‘Why aren’t you?’

There are many answers to that question. But what it comes down to is that regardless of the answers to why I’m not a professional, there isn’t a good answer to why I’m not writing at least for myself.

So I this year I am proclaiming to all the world (or all the three people who follow my blog), that I am going to be a writer! It’s proven fact that if you share your goals with others you are more likely to attain them. So there it is - it's out there - it's going to happen now. I’m not saying I will be published or even be good at being just a hobby writer, but I am going to write. I’m going to push myself to post more often, and a different kind of post, as a way to share whatever I’m writing, regardless – be it good, bad, compliment-worthy or never-going-to-be-performed caliber. I already have a notebook that I carry with me each day for me to write down random thoughts, possible titles, memories, etc. that I think could turn into stories, poems, or messages. I call it my “All-I-Need-to-Know-I-Learned-in-Kindergarten-notebook.” But for me, it’s more what I learned in third grade – that I like writing; that although I’m not stellar at it, it’s a part of me; that when I run into Mr. Laakso again, I want to be able to tell him “yes!” Yes, of course I’m still writing stories.

Here’s to making my nine-year-old dreams come true!