My love/hate relationship with Grape-Nuts

Conversations with my middle child are not always rational things. At six years of age and with a very active imagination, Rooster is not the type of child who I can trust to tell me what is going on in that mind of hers, let alone in reality. She has been known to tell very long stories about things that have supposedly happened to her at school, only to have the listener suddenly recognize a similarity between that story and a recently-viewed movie. The tales she tells even have the capability to bring her to tears.

So when I asked Rooster today whether she'd like to stay overnight at her grandparents' house over summer vacation, I was not entirely surprised to see her eyes well up. She acted somewhat petrified as she told me there were scary things at their house. I remembered how she had melted down the last time we attempted an overnight visit, and thought that perhaps we could get to the bottom of what was truly bothering her. I asked her what was scary at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Her reply? "They have Grape-Nuts!" Seriously?

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with that cereal. I love to hate it. I also detest, scorn, and abhor it. I loathed it so much over the years that back when I was in high school, I wrote a persuasive speech on why Grape-Nuts should not be allowed as a breakfast cereal. I came up with alternative uses for it, such as aquarium gravel, filling in cracks in the sidewalk, and to create pathways through gardens. Obviously, this was not a well-researched speech, but it was certainly amusing (to me) to present. I would like to think that my audience enjoyed it as well, but that could be a completely erroneous assumption.

My children, naturally, absolutely love Grape-Nuts. The taste, the texture, and the way it crunches in their mouths just thrills them to no end. It is one of the few cereals all three kidlets will consume voluntarily. Why? I am assuming it is just to drive me crazy. They think it is hysterical that Mommy shudders every time they ask to have some for breakfast.

So the fact that the absolutely terrifying thing about staying overnight at my folks' house was the presence of Grape-Nuts was truly baffling, even more so because it is not a cereal they would purchase on their own. If Grape-Nuts were actually at their house, it was because their grandchildren loved the cereal and asked to have it while they were there. There is no possible, rational explanation why Rooster would be so petrified about a cereal she loves.

Quite frankly, Rooster was easier to understand when her stories were quoted almost verbatim from the latest movie in our DVD queue. Although I do not understand her, I suppose I should take some solace from the knowledge that she is starting to be swayed to Mommy's opinion of Grape-Nuts. Perhaps I should dig out that old speech of mine and put it to good use solidifying her opinion.