14 Questions
Maya was not pleased yesterday when I told her that we couldn’t go to the park after school. She quickly perked up, however, when I told her that my sweet friend Bonny was coming over for tea instead. Since Maya had never met Bonny before I quickly braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions. And Maya didn’t disappoint.
In the 15 minutes it took us to get home from her school I answered the following:
Who is Bonny?
My friend from work.
Have I met her before?
No Maya, you haven’t.
What does she look like?
She has long black hair.
Is it curly like Isabella’s or straight like yours?
It is very straight. (Of course my hair is anything but straight but I chose not to open up a whole new line of questioning by explaining that to her. As an aside, thank you Chi Flat Iron for changing my life forever.)
How else does Bonny look?
She is Chinese.
Does she speak Chinese?
Yes she does.
If she speaks Chinese, how are we going to understand her?
Well Maya she speaks English too.
Does she live far away?
Yes she does. About an hour away.
China is only an hour away?
No Maya, Bonny lives in California where we live.
Well why doesn’t she live in China if she is Chinese?
Some Chinese people move to other countries and Bonny is one of them.
Does Bonny live with Ni-Hao Kai-Lan? (Kai-Lan is a Nickelodeon character who speaks Chinese.)
No Maya, Kai-Lan is pretend. She doesn’t live with Bonny.
What kind of car does Bonny drive?
I’m not sure. (Is it obvious my kid live in Los Angeles or what?)
How can you not know if she is your friend?
All I remember is that her car is black.
A black what though?
At this point I thanked the lord that we reached home and the questions stopped. Instead Maya and I directed our energies to make a snack for our impending tea time.
We had every intention of making an Oatmeal Ball recipe by Martha Stewart but unfortunately I couldn’t find the piece of paper I wrote the recipe on the last time I made them. Even better? Martha’s site was down! Her site is finally back up today but is as slow as molasses. I’m sorry, but if Martha of all people can’t manage her website how is there hope for the rest of us?
Anyway, since the Oatmeal Balls were such a hit the last time we made them, I decided to go against my better judgment and make them from memory.
When will I learn that I should trust my first instinct? I had no idea what I was doing. Thus, I made something that looked similar to Martha’s Oatmeal Balls, but they certainly aren’t worthy of the same title. Hence, may I present:
Average Oatmeal Balls
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup of brown rice cereal
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of almond butter
2 tablespoons of honey
1/3 cup of dried cranberries
1. Toast the oats in a dry pan for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Sprinkle with the cinnamon. Remove the oats from the pan.
2. In the same (now empty) pan add the olive oil, vanilla, almond butter, and honey. Stir well.
3. Add the oats back, the rice cereal, and the cranberries. Stir until well combined.
Here is where things went wrong – last time I made these I was able to form them into little balls and refrigerate. But this time the mixture turned out too dry and crumbly to form into balls. So we improvised by putting the mixture in cupcake liners and put them in the fridge to harden up a bit. Texture aside, these actually tasted okay, but I was disappointed in the final product. The funny thing is my picky husband, the same one who proclaims meals that I slave over for hours as “decent,” ate two of these yesterday. Apparently he likes them. I say apparently because he wasn’t exactly tripping over himself handing over compliments, but Ali eating seconds of anything speaks volumes.
As a side note, thank you all for your nice comments yesterday. I know that for every negative comment/e-mail I receive, countless positive ones make up for it. You have no idea how much I appreciate your nice comments and your appreciation for my non-stop sarcasm.
While I'm not going to win Mother/Wife of the Year Award anytime soon, I haven't killed anyone yet or shot myself in the head. And that, my friends, is how I calculate success these days. 
FANCY THAT FANCY THIS 
haha i love your calm answers to all those questions. mothers seriously have patience in aces and spades. props to you for not making up crazy, fantastical answers i suppose?? haha wouldnt want maya walking around repeating some of the more creative responses 🙂
happy weekend! i would definitely try one of those average oatmeal balls 🙂
lol– Sounds like you were having your own version of “Ask Me Anything” 🙂
You are SO right!!
Maya’s questions are adorable, but you must have tones of patience to be constantly putting up with them 🙂 I’m not even sure my own mom had that much patience with me; she would answer maybe 4 of my questions and then tell me to stop asking…
Sorry your oatmeal balls only turned out “average”; they sure do look delicious though. Anything with oats and almond butter calls my name 🙂
Haha I love those questions. I know how it is. The kids where I work have a constant supply of questions… and some are quite strange. One little boy asked me one time (out of nowhere) “Do shoes breathe?” Now how do you answer that one ha?
Those balls sound really great!
haha Maya sounds like a future investigator 🙂 I was the same exact way…my mom said I drove her crazy.
Your Average Oatmeal Balls sound good! How could you not like oats, cinnamon, and sugar??
It’s good to see that Nickelodeon is expanding from more than just Dora the Explorer. By the time I have kids, they may be randomly piping up in Spanish, Chinese, French, Finnish….
I can’t help but look at this from my dorky teacher perspective and get excited for Maya! Her inquisitiveness is such a sign of being a lifelong learner!! She has lots of academic success ahead of her, I can tell!!
Ha ha. Kids are so funny. Some of the things my nephew asks makes me want to giggle instead of give a straight answer. I’m sure you get used to it though.
I love how you describe everyday happenings in your life. They become quite funny!
Hope you had a lovely tea time……
haha! maya is one curious kid. such a funny question about the nickelodeon character, i love how kids assume the world works that way. those “average” oatmeal balls look pretty awesome to me, martha can take her perfect frou frou oatmeal balls, i’m likin these ones!
Ha….the joys of being a mother 🙂
Oatmeal balls? Yum…i hate the fact that almond butter is so costly tho…lots of recipes call for so much…and i hate the idea of using so much. 😦
LOL…this cracked me up! ahhaha. So funny about all her barrage of questions! She certainly is curious.
I think your average oatmeal balls sound fantastic! Almond butter, cinnamon, oatmeal! Sounds fabulous hon! Im so excited for finally some nice weather. (It could be warmer though for my taste!) haha. Although Im working today so ah well! Anyways hon, I hope you have a great day!
I love that kids are so cute & curious. Hey, it was cute that Maya thought that maybe China is only an hour away! You should do a post-meeting post… I would love to hear her questions after meeting Bonny! 🙂
LOL! You have a very curious daughter! I had a giggle at “If she speaks Chinese, how are we going to understand her?”
LOL China is only an hour away? She must be so so adorable and fun. My daughter watched KaiLan too and always corrected us how we said her name that sounded different than her American-nized pronunciation. You are ready another one?
I can’t even imagine having another child. I am barely able to pull it together with Maya!!
I was smiling the whole time I was reading the question and answer portion of Maya and yourself, hehe. She’s such a brilliant darling.
hilarious. i’m friends with ni-hao kai lan folks! my buddy sascha is their head writer and my friend karin created the show. sadly, it’s on hiatus!!!
That’s too bad. So many children like the show. Hope it will be back on soon.
lol I love Maya’s questions. Kids are so funny.
thanks for stopping by my blog! Your guest post on Sophia’s blog was very nice, thanks! Regarding the gluten free pizza, here is the recipe I used;
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pizza-Dough-I/Detail.aspx
Obviously I omitted the all-purpose flour, and substituted the same amount of oat bran flour!). I would suggest really spreading the pizza out and making it thin because it was really thick and didn’t get all the way done in the middle. It was amazing though, I will make it again for sure.
As for the supplement regulation, it’s shocking how few people actually know they are not regulated. The industry is making big bucks of out lack of knowledge, it’s sad.
THank you so much for the recipe. I am going to try to find oat bran flour which I haven’t tried before. Usually I just eat the toppings off the pizza but it would be so nice to enjoy the whole thing for a change!
Haha, Maya is hilarious! Did she bombard Bonny with further questions? Have you seen the group on Facebook called “Shit My Dad Says”? They’re making it into a TV show. You should start a group called “Shit My Child Says.” It could be your segue to writing fame!
sounds like Maya and my daughter Kayla would get along very well or annoy the heck out of one another. only a mother can have such patience lol. sorry your oatmeal balls didn’t turn out the way you wanted.
I just love Maya. Ha ha ha.
i just got to this post and am busting out laughing — you two are too cute! you never fail to crack me up – i LOVE your writing!