My 9 year old daughter came home from school a while back. She’s beautiful, you know. I’d been racking my brain trying to come up with a new snack for after school and the “I’m so hungry” cry that comes from children prior to opening their math books and sharpening a pencil.
I’d been patrolling the local grocery store for something other than goldfish and apples or ice cream and oreos and stumbled across a childhood favorite: Graham Crackers and Vanilla Frosting.
My girl was wary of this new concoction for she hadn’t heard tell of something quite like this before. It wasn’t cookies or cake or wrapped in bright colored paper with an enticing website written on the inside. I assured her that she’d love it, but her early years of unquestioned acceptance were long gone. She’d only seen this cracker combined twice before: as a pie crust and a camp fired shmore. What more could you possibly do with this cookie come cracker, she thought? Just how versatile could it be? She questioned its origins and opened the door to stories from my childhood. So I told her.
Sometimes my mother would change it up with chocolate frosting, but not both at the same time; my brothers and I never traded that particular ‘cookie’ from our lunch box; we’d copy, as best we could, the Oreo cookie twist with a square cracker – what a feat that was! We’d sit together in the kitchen, after school, with our plates of graham crackers and frosting and cold milk and share our day with our mom.
My daughter and I sat together and had a snack. I listened as she told me of her day and watched her delight in spreading the sweet cream frosting on each cracker and measuring each sip of milk to make sure she had enough to last through that final bite.
It was a lovely moment that I will never forget. Afternoons are not always that sweet which makes them all the more precious. I always hold a little hope in my heart that when she comes walking through our door after school, whether Graham crackers are present or not, she’ll say, “Hey, mom? Do you want to sit and talk with me?”
I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
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