well that's just grahamtastic

This post started as a cry for help. An SOS of the save-me-from-my-TODDLER variety. I was convinced that the great Bean was intent on my destruction (implosion seemed like the most appealing scenario). All the usual components for death-by-implosion: three consecutive days of 40ish-minute (!!!) naps, a screeching noise that could wake the dead, and new found levels of food pickiness the likes of which I've never witnessed... (until now: You want Wheat Chex and not Rice Chex?).

There is also this delightful knack she is developing to DEMAND a food-item just as I'm about to sit down at the table to eat my meal. So I get up, I get the additional apple slices or crackers or Wheat Chex (what was I THINKING, to buy RICE CHEX?!?!). I bring the items back to her highness and then go to sit down for my meal when WAWAWAWAWAWAWA shouts the girl child. I get up, grab the WAWAWAWAWAWA and then go to sit down. You can guess what happens next. And next after that, and after that, and after that too.

Anyway. This post started out like that. And then I had to stop writing because I needed to get Bean in the bathtub (I'm cheating and writing this on Wednesday night). So I got her in the tub and we splashed and laughed and had a grand old time. Then we pajama'ed and sang and said our prayers and said goodnight. At which point I went downstairs to get myself a very-much-deserved bowl of ice cream. As I scooped, I thought about the post I'd been working on, and I thought about Miss Bean.

(I really don't think she's trying to destroy me. Exactly.)

And then I thought, you know what would go great with this bowl of ice cream? One of those Honey Maid graham crackers from the box I bought on Monday. As I grabbed the graham crackers I kept thinking about Bean.

(It's the Teething That Ate Manhattan, I know that.)

And just as I opened the fresh box of grahams, I noticed that the side of the crackers looked a little funny. Like wavy. And lumpy. So I opened the package and discovered (are you READY FOR THIS?)...

THEY WENT AND CHANGED THE BACK OF THE HONEY MAID GRAHAMS.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

The fronts still look the same, with the little evenly spaced holes and the dotted lines to mark off where you'd break them in half and in fourths. But the backs of the grahams? They're all... weird. With lumpy bits and these hash marks that look like the grahams have been run over by a very tiny Honey Maid Tank, bent on the subservience of all graham crackers (YOU WILL BOW TO ME! WE RUN OVER YOU! YOU ARE SMASHED FLAT! FOREVER!).



It moved this whole Bean-bent-on-melting-my-brain into perspective, you know? What's a few bad days with your kid compared to THE DESTRUCTION OF A CHILDHOOD ICON?

I checked every cracker in the box just to see if it was some kind of Freak Graham Baking Incident and sadly, every one of them had the Evil Ridges of Wrongness.

It's been a hard week.

What about you?




Also: don't forget that we're doing the book discussion for The Solace of Leaving Early next Thursday - I'm really looking forward to it, I hope you'll be there. If not, I may have to pelt you with Terrible Hash Mark Graham Crackers of Badness.