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Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%..

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

What with three children in our house, and yes, I still say “child” when discussing the 18-year-old, much to her dismay, I find it difficult to keep up with appetites and the current price of food.

Kroger has had a sale some cereals for a few weeks now, $1.99 for a “giant” box of whatever they put on sale. Usually, my Honey Bunches of Oats is included. It’s what I mix in with Key Lime Pie yogurt every morning, and I mean every morning, unless we are on vacation.

My favorite, Dannon Light and Fit Crunbles yogurt has been gone from the shelves for some time. The other day I found a whole line of it at Wal-mart. I pointed, screeching at Savanna to come look, as I proceeded to toss as many as I could reach into our cart. She looked at her feet and shook her head.

I looked up and saw there were three still on the shelf, way back. Thinking maybe I should just leave them for someone else, a man standing near, apparently amused by the excitement over yogurt, approached and asked if I wanted him to grab those last ones for me. I chuckled a bit and said I guess I would just take them all. As he handed me the last of them, I noticed Savanna and Kaitlyn had wandered off somewhere around the baby items, looking as if they had no idea who I was. It didn’t bother me one bit as I happily walked off with 14 containers of my favorite yogurt. They might not understand it, but I don’t understand their cereal.

Matter of fact, I don’t understand the cereal/milk combination at all any more. One morning, I watched in horror as a bowl of Lucky Charms was poured, milk added, and the child immediately began scooping up cereal and milk, walking towards their “spot” in front of the TV. I asked what on earth they were doing, and the reply was “well, eating this before it gets soggy.”

What?? My mind went back to Corn Flakes and Cheerios, our staples in the house. Once in a while we got Frosted Flakes, but it was usually Corn Flakes. Now, everyone knows that if it’s just Corn Flakes or Cheerios, there are several spoonfuls of sugar that have to be added. With me, following this addition, I would sit and push the cereal down into the milk for several minutes until the sugar was mixed and the flakes or O’s were properly soggy. To the point of oatmeal, soggy. That soggy cereal with cold, sweetened milk was my favorite breakfast, after left over tuna fish and noodles. And here I was, thinking I had raised these young’uns pretty well, and there they were, eating crunchy cereal, saving the milk for last, happily drinking out of the bowl. I had failed.

There was one exception to the soggy cereal, which was when we would set up the Scrabble game in the dining room, and I would have a coffee cup full of dry Cheerios that I happily crunched through the entire game. It was the only time I wanted my cereal to crunch.

They still sell Corn Flakes and Cheerios, and Frosted Flakes, and Honey Nut Cheerios, and after that, well, it’s just a spinning wheel of flavors and colors. Lucky Charms used to be, well, Lucky Charms. We now have Lucky Charms with Honey, Lucky Charms with clusters, Lucky Charms with no cereal just the marshmallows.... that last one mystifies me. The same with Fruity Pebbles. There are Fruity Pebbles with marshmallows, magic Fruity Pebbles that turn the milk colors. Now, if the kids paid me any attention, regular Fruity Pebbles do the same thing IF you let them sit in the milk long enough for the cereal to get soggy, the milk turns colors. There is Cookie Crisp cereal, which is basically chocolate chip or sugar cookies in cereal form. Then you get to the “organic” aisle, which confuses me with the description of some of the mystery grains that are ground up with no sugar, flavoring or coloring. Hmm.

The first cereal was actually pretty much this organic stuff. It was called “granula,” as it was ground up grains that were twice baked and then had to be soaked to be edible. Sounds familiar. It was invented in 1863 by a James Jackson. He ran a health spa and believed this concoction could cure illnesses. It didn’t sell well, however, another food advocate heard about it, a man by the name of John Kellogg. He made the same thing, but Jackson sued him and Kellogg renamed his concoction “granola.” Well, we all know who won the marketing system in that as I’ve never heard of Jackson cereal, but I certainly have heard of Kellogg’s. So people have been soaking their cereal for over 150 years... soaking being the key word here.

I sincerely doubt that either Jackson or Kellogg could have imagined the infinite varieties of cereal I face each time I walk down the cereal aisle. There are a few favorites I know, Fruity Pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, but other than that, I could easily just grab a colorful box and these children would pour milk on the stuff and eat it.

Speaking of milk, what on earth happened to milk? We had milk. It came in a glass bottle, it was put in a metal container on our front porch. Once in a while, Mom would order a quart of that creamy chocolate milk from Blue Grass Dairy, and that stuff there would rival a chocolate milk shake for flavor. We had whole milk, the some times chocolate milk and later, Dad’s powdered fat-free milk that he would stir up and set bottles of it in the fridge. We did not touch Dad’s powdered milk, and we didn’t need to be told that.

Now, once I have handled the cereal aisle, I enter the dairy section, and I use the term “dairy” very carefully. There is milk. Lots of milk. Fat-free milk, 1% milk, 2% milk, almond milk, cashew milk, oat milk, milk for the lactose intolerant, soy milk, and if you are lucky enough to have gotten to the right door, there is milk-milk, otherwise known as whole milk.

I’m not sure who decided that milk-milk wasn’t good enough and we needed all these other concoctions they call milk? Now I like cashews, but I”m not about to try cashew milk. I also like almonds, and I’ve tried almond milk, I am not a fan. So there is no way I’m going to ruin cashews by drinking cashew milk.

I’m not sure what happened over the generations, but it suddenly seems that everyone is allergic to something, making it necessary for companies to reconfigure something to become that something but without the somethings that someone is allergic to. Confusing? You bet! Expensive? Well, in this day and time, yes, yes it is.

Which brings me around to why there happen to be about 15 boxes of cereal sitting back in the pantry. I don’t think there are two of any kind of cereal, just 15 boxes of different kinds of cereal. At $1.99 a box, I tend to buy a lot of cereal. Add to that the fact that milk is on sale for $2.79 a gallon, these kids are having cereal for breakfast, lunch and supper if they want. It’s not normally what they choose, but they are welcome to throw that cereal in a bowl, splash on the milk and call it a meal. What with all those vitamins they supposedly add to that cereal, it seems to me a pretty good choice.

Now, if I can just get them to wait around until that cereal gets soggy, I will consider myself a success story.

Stay safe. Stay well. Whole milk still tastes the best, except for that Blue Grass Dairy chocolate milk.

Kay LeRoy is Fort Madison native and the daughter of Dick and Mary Ann Fleckenstein. Se now lives in Georgia.

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Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 79F. Winds light and variable.

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