Snack to share

Spencer's school has a snack each day in his class. The snack is something generic and hypoallergenic. They are really particular about food allergies, so the snacks are usually things that most kids are not allergic to. A popular snack time food at Faith PYC is cereal. Dry, of course, but a good snack, none-the-less. On birthdays, to avoid any allergies or cross contamination, we bring fresh fruit. The kids go crazy for it, too! Anyway, Spencer is a pretty good eater most of the time, so he enjoys whatever they throw his way. Well, except raisins. He is not a fan, and frankly, neither am I, so he comes by that honestly. I mean who wants food that was once fresh, but now it is overripe and has been sitting in the sun. Try doing that with some foods and you end up in the hospital. Like try it with Potato Salad. That's what I thought.
Am I rambling?

So when school is over for the day and we are in the car on the way home, I always ask, "How was your day?" And 9 times out of 10, I get the standard kid answer of "Fine" or "Good." Which, as all Moms know, it not what we are looking for! We want details! We want to know what happened while they were our of our sight. We want to know if someone was mean or someone was funny or they read books or built towers or made leaf piles on the playground. We want to know, darn it!

I always try to find a question or two that I can ask to start of spark a conversation, you know? I know most of the kids in the class, so I can ask "How was Jack?' or "Was Lilly in a good mood today?" But one safe question that can usually spark some good chatting is "Well, what was your snack today?" This is usually a pretty easy question to answer due to the allergy concerns that I rambled about earlier.

So this one day a few weeks ago, I asked him,
"So, Spence, what did y'all eat for snack today?"
And he said, "It was a cereal."
And I said, "What kind?"
So he starts trying to tell me, "It was sweet."
So I name a few, "Frosted Flakes? "Fruit Loops?"
"No, Momma, not those. They were squares," he said.
"Oh!" I say, "Cinnamon Toast Crunch?"
Spencer, "No, it was one of your favorites."
"Oh, was it frosted mini wheats?" I asked, and even though it is technically a rectangle, I do enjoy those.
"Ugh! No, Mom, not those!" he said, becoming frustrated.
So I gave up the conversation. This is supposed to be a good way to get him chatting, not make him ill.

Fast forward a couple of weeks.

We were walking out to the car after school. Holding hands as we walked through the parking lot, I started to ask him about his day. His face lit up!
"Oh, Mom! We had that same snack again. You know, the cereal that you like?"
So I said, "Oh good, buddy! Do you know what it is called now?"
He grinned as we got to the car and he climbed in, "Nope."
And I said, "Uh, OK," as he was opening his backpack.
He reached down into the very bottom of his backpack and pulls out this:

It was one piece of Life Cereal!

Bless his sweet precious little heart. He was thinking about me and wanted me to know the snack that he had so badly, that he smuggled a piece of cereal out of school in the bottom of his backpack! And he knew I liked that cereal! So standing there in the parking lot, looking at my sweet boy with a proud smile on his face, I ate that piece of cereal that had been down in the bottom of his backpack. And you know what? It tasted better than any other cereal I have ever had.