On Making "Garola" (Granola)

Noah and I have been in a great groove lately and this morning's granola-making experience was just chockful of examples. I feel some obligation to keep the family supplied in granola since it can be such a wholesome breakfast food and Noah and Matthew eat it almost every day. I also wanted to give my sister a batch during our visit this weekend. So...today was the day. It's something I usually do when Noah's not in the house: it takes about 2 hours total with lots of chopping, melting butter, roasting nuts, toasting the oats, etc. None of that sounds very kid-friendly, right?

I'd considered waiting to start until he went down for nap later in the day. But something told me to give it a try. It looked like rain, we had Richard Buckner on the stereo, we had no better plans...

I found myself chopping 10 walnuts at a time, as Noah stood next to me on his chair and stoically placed handful after handful on my cutting board. It was absolutely a make-busy task on his part and yet, I have never chopped walnuts so intentionally. I was glowing because this kid was beaming radiant light at his task, interrupting his joyous task only to offer little gems like, "I like being with you, Mama." And on it went, as he happily mixed melted butter, sesame seeds, maple syrup and oats in a giant turkey roasting pan (because I finally went bold and made a quadruple recipe-that's 16 cups of oats!) and added the chopped dried cherries and ginger at the very end.

It was such a good meditation on mindful parenting and finding a way to meet everyone's needs, even when those needs seem to be at odds. It was slow and inefficient, for sure, but there was nowhere else to be. And yes, he claimed his post-nap bowl of granola was really good!