i have never liked oatmeal. no. would never eat it as a child. but my brother...matt loved it. he ate instant quaker oats, cinnamon and raisin i believe (the kind in the purple packaging), every morning before school and on the weekends (unless mom made french toast or dad took us to the country bake shop for doughnuts). at some point, making it for him became my job. i would hold my breath as i stirred the hot water into the oats. i hated that smell and that paste-like texture.
with this freezing weather and the neverending chest cold of 2008, i have been craving mostly warm food...especially in the morning. i usually eat cheerios though...sometimes toast. but we bought irish steel cut oats for me last week because i just wanted something warm...i thought i could try. so today, i did. and as the snow was falling in that hope tomorrow is a snow day sort of way, i stirred the maple syrup and brown sugar into the oats and splash of milk and the smell took me back to a kitchen of my childhood and the simple task of being a big sister. and i thought about how if it had been this time of year back in that kitchen and we had been home for a snow day, kenny and dolly's "once upon a christmas" would have been the album playing in the background. in that house, we had speakers throughout, even in the kitchen. "christmas to remember" is one of my favorites from the album (of course, if you are brave enough to want to watch the video from the kenny and dolly christmas special circa 1984...which i, of course, watched when it was on when i was eight...then check it out [how i wish i could remember why they are in this setting for this song])
and in that "i do not like green eggs and ham" way that lifes so often goes, i loved having irish oatmeal for breakfast. imagine that...might have been the heaping spoon of brown sugar. maybe some morning soon i can play at being a big sister again and fix a bowl for my brother...
