Granola, Revisited

Once upon a time, I loved to cook and plan menus, and make delicious meals and desserts. Then Jack was born. The End.

Somehow I found myself alone in the house, and the kitchen wasn't already disaster, so I decided to make some granola. The recipe calls for 2 cups of oats, but I usually double most of the recipe and then throw in an extra cup of oats to justify the sugar and honey and orange juice. And I don't really measure the oats, I just get 5 scoops out of the bulk bin. And that seems just about right. So I started to make granola and I measured, heated, stirred, chopped, mixed just about everything and then I dumped the oats out into the bowl on top. But it wasn't 5 cups/scoops. It was way, way more than that. I stirred and stirred, but it was pretty dry. So I mixed up another batch of brown sugar, orange juice, honey, vanilla, and canola oil. And I stirred and stirred and stirred. Still sort of dry. So I poured some orange juice into the bowl, with a glop of honey and some canola oil. And I stirred. Little more juice. Little drop of oil. And done.

Then I hoped it would either be disgusting, since there was no way I could ever replicate it, or really, really good, because I now had two giant tupperware containers full of it. And there was still a lot left on the tray, but I was just too tired to deal with it at that point. For the rest of the evening everyone took a handful whenever they walked by. (Why yes, there is granola all over the floor, why do you ask?) I left it out and considered myself a nice mommy for preparing Luke's breakfast the night before. Nothing like getting up on a Saturday morning and watching cartoons while you eat homemade granola out of the pan.

And then, Saturday morning, a miracle happened.

Luke was watching cartoons and eating handfuls of granola when I walked by with Baby Jack, who had made it abundantly clear through both verbal and non-verbal communication that he was interested in nursing. I grabbed a handful of granola, ate some, handed a bite to Jack and then sat down to nurse him. And he started to nurse, and then he sat up and said, "Mo? Pees?" And he did the signs for both more and please. And he wasn't talking about breast milk. Faster than you can imagine, I had him in his high chair, eating a bowl of granola, and he hasn't nursed since. He has eaten a lot of granola though. It's been 6 days now, but I still feel like I am "in the process of weaning him". That is because, according to Dave, I am "crazy".