Raisins in the Bun

I have long thought of raisins as a waste of perfectly good grapes.

When I was growing up, if someone gave me an oatmeal cookie, I carefully picked out the raisins.

When confronted with raisins in cookies these days, I just forge ahead. But, if I had my druthers, no cookie that crossed my lips would have raisins in it.

I have softened my stance on raisins in some respects. For instance, I have come to see that they can be just the thing to counterbalance the salty crunchiness of other ingredients in trail mix. The reason that works, though, is that the rest of the trail mix counterbalances the mushy sweetness of the raisins.

Uncoerced, I would still never dream of eating a raisin on its own. At Halloween one year, my mother gave out boxes of raisins to trick-or-treaters, despite me pleading with her to have mercy on the poor innocent souls.

As it happens, Mr. Doobins feels the same way about raisins. When confronted with a raisin in a cookie or Cinnamon Deluxe bagel, he carefully extracts it before taking the next bite.

The other day, he came home from preschool and announced in amazement that, even though it had raisins in it, he had enjoyed the conglomeration of pretzels, etc. that they had put together to make their special Halloween Monster Mix.

Our attitude about raisins is not the only point in which our tastes overlap.

I have long wondered why one person likes one thing and another something else.

I know that taste has something to do with how you are brought up and how the people you spend time with influence you. But there also seems to be something arbitrary to it. Why should one person expecially like blue and another consider orange the cat's pajamas?

Everyone having different tastes does have the wonderful effect of creating a world more diverse than it would be if everyone thought that living room walls should be beige.

I sometimes wonder whether, before you are born, you are assigned a taste package.

"I think a Taste Package No. 11 would go well with Kim's personality. What do you think?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely!"

Some years later, along comes Mr. Doobins, and, as it happens, he is assigned not Taste Package No. 11 but one in the same family, say, Taste Package No. 27. So our tastes overlap in some things and not in others.

It gives us a place to make a connection.

Another adult says, "Mr. Doobins, don't be so picky. Eat those raisins."

And there I am to say, "I know how he feels. Raisins are a blight on the face of creation."

Would You Like A Hand With That Bagel?

On my first day of vacation a couple of vacations back, I headed over to Garnet, Sparkle Girl and Doobins' house first thing in the morning.

Just around the corner from my house, I came upon a yard sale heavy on stuff for kids. I found a tricycle for Doobins, which we had been talking about getting. I found rain boots for Sparkle Girl, which we had also been talking about getting.
And I found a blue folding table for kids with a green chair and a yellow chair, which we had not been talking about but that clearly filled a need.

I also found a found a bingo game that was purely an unnecessary impulse buy.

It all came to $19. I felt so good about the whole thing that, when I handed them the $20 bill, I said, "Keep the change," something that goes against all yard-sale protocol but seemed the thing to do at the time.

My vacation had barely started, and I had already had huge success at a yard sale.

Garnet set up the table in the kitchen at the foot of the kitchen table. There, the kids could eat more comfortably than at the big table while still being right by the adults.

Sparkle Girl has since graduated full-time to the large table but Doobins still chooses the smaller table most times.

On my way over to their house this morning, I stopped off and bought bagels. Doobins likes Cinnamon Deluxe bagels, which are cinnamon-raisin bagels drizzled with a glaze that brings to mind glazed Krispy Kremes. When he first saw his bagel, he was quite excited. But as I was cutting the bagel I did something horribly wrong.

I have no idea what that was. He couldn't say.

Sometimes, he can say what bothers him. I once wrecked a plate of pancakes for him by putting on the syrup the wrong way. On that day, they truly were ruined in his mind, and he never would eat them.

Other times, though, he clearly wants something but has a hard time acknowledging that after he settles down because he's on record as having said he doesn't want it.

In that case, the situation can sometimes be salvaged if everyone backs off. Once his mind clears, he may come up with some strategy that works for him.

So I put the plate with his Cinnamon Deluxe on the blue table, and the rest of us sat down at the big table to eat our bagels while Doobins weathered his inner storm in the living room.

About half a bagel later, Doobins - in full stealth mode - scurried across the floor and disappeared under the table. Garnet and I looked at each other. It was all we could do not to laugh.

But laughing would have been fatal.

So we just kept eating our bagels.

A little while later, a boy's hand appeared from beneath the table, crept across the top of the table to the plate and started tugging the plate back toward the edge.

I feared that, when Doobins tried to take the plate off the table, he might tip it over. If the Cinnamon Deluxe ended up on the floor, I knew he would be too upset to ever eat it.

Garnet leaned over and helped him the plate float from above to below. Doobins went to work eating the bagel under the table.

The space was a little tight for a young man just a couple of weeks shy of his fifth birthday, and, every now and then, he would bump his head on the underside of the table.

After I couple of minutes, it felt as if everything was OK.

"Would like to sit in a chair?" I said.

"That's a good idea," Doobins said.

We moved the operation to the top of the table.

When he was done eating, he stood by the sink while I used a wet cloth to wipe the glaze off his fingers.