Desmond is 2 years 8 months. He has an imaginary friend. Or five. Five baby monsters. He feeds them and bathes them and makes sure they take naps. Last night he bought them toys from the toy store (the wicker basket in the living room) and then brought them outside to play.
He also likes to build robots (or robops) from the blocks that we made him for Christmas (cereal boxes and whatnot, paper mached with newspaper, and painted with acrylic paints, which we really should have sealed with something, but we're not quite as crafty as we aspire to be, and also I think we made all of these blocks between the hours of bedtime and midnight on Christmas Eve). He constructs these towering creatures, gives them a kiss, then knocks them down. Paul calls it the kiss of doom. I have no idea where this game came from, but I blame the boy's father.
His language has exploded in the last couple months. Much to the grandparents' and occasional strangers' concern, he really wasn't saying much before then. Yesterday in the car he was practicing some recent acquisitions. I could hear from the back seat this seemingly unrelated list: caulking gun, stapler, peach tart, transformer. Those Transformers, man. He got ahold of the Toys R Us ad from the Sunday paper, and now he wants it read to him 24 hours a day. I just can't find the narrative excitement, in "fast action battlers or deluxe figures, sale 9.99 each," but he never gets tired of it. We had no idea that this happened so early. We don't even have a TV.
And somewhere he picked up, "right now," as in "I want rice crispy treats, right now." Though we're working on the manners, with the sentiment, I completely agree.
And this recipe is so, so easy, that those two-year-old cravings inside of you can pretty much be satisfied. This is a classic recipe. If your mom didn't make these for you as a kid, I bet one of the neighborhood moms did. But with corn syrup. And white sugar. I like to pretend that these are moderately nutritious as far as sweet treats go, but you'll probably want to eat the whole pan, and then I guarantee you won't feel like you've been eating health food. Not that I know this from experience or anything. But do consider yourself warned.
Peanut Butter Rice Crispy Treats
If you don't have rice crispies, these also work with whatever cereal odds and ends you have lying around. This is a perfect recipe for cleaning out the pantry.
- 6 cups crisp rice cereal (I like the Erewhon brand Crispy Brown Rice because it's really low in sugar, but I'm also known to buy Trader Joe's brand if I don't want to make two stops.)
- 1 cup brown rice syrup
- 1 cup sugar (when I say sugar, I'm always talking about the unrefined stuff, that you can find labeled as evaporated cane juice. I know we haven't talked about this in a while.)
- 1 teaspoon dark molasses (or you can just sub 1 c. of brown sugar for the molasses and sugar)
- 1 cup peanut butter
- pinch of salt (if your peanut butter's not salted, then add another couple pinches)
Lightly grease a 9 by 12 inch baking dish. Pour cereal into a large bowl. In a sauce pan over medium heat, stir together the sugar, brown rice syrup, and molasses until just melted and beginning to bubble. Stir in the peanut butter and salt and return to a boil. Pour hot peanut butter mixture over cereal and stir to combine. Press into prepared baking dish. Let cool for about 5 to 10 minutes. Cut into squares. You can eat them at this point or let them cool completely. Do not chill.
(Aren't my new curtains cute?)
