Under normal circumstances, I try to avoid cereal like the bubonic plague.

(I don’t know what the bubonic plague is exactly, but I do know that I like that word “bubonic”.)

I had a coupon for a box of this stuff and it looked good, so I went for it.

Except “normal circumstances” no longer applies, at least not for a while here. You see, I am in the first trimester of pregnancy with our third child.

(Surprised? Yeah, me too!)

(Surprised, but ultimately delighted!)

That little tidbit actually plays the biggest role of all as to why I’m craving cold cereal. I’m plagued with morning sickness and cereal is one of the few foods that help. Now if I can just figure out what to do about the strong desire to take an afternoon nap every time I look at a basket of laundry that needs to be folded or a dishwasher that needs to be unloaded.

So I figure if I’m going to eat cereal, as it’s one of the few foods that appeals to me right now, I’m going to do everything in my power to load it up with fresh food too. Frozen blueberries (just awesome on cereal!), slightly under-ripe sliced banana (so perfect in texture!), ground flax seed and hemp seeds as well.

Cold almond milk. Gloriously cold, cold, almond milk.

I expected this to be more shredded wheat like, the cereal that is least at risk for late night cupboard rummaging.

But Barbara’s Vanilla Almond Shredded Oats are not at all like shredded wheat. “Shredded Oats” are apparently something very different. Something a lot more like the exact opposite of the bubonic plague in a bowl. Something so perfectly crunchy and sweet that I want to spoon this cereal in bed under the down comforter with my head resting on a deliciously soft pillow on a sunny autumn day.

Please consider “pregnancy” my official explanation for the sporadic posting lately. It’s been hard to keep up and write about how awesome real food makes you feel and how much energy it gives you when that’s the exact opposite of how I’ve been feeling for a number of weeks now.

It’s my hope that sharing this news will make it easier for me to post and easier for you to understand why I’ve been eating the most random things over and over again, only to find that the mere thought of it a couple of days later makes me feel like I’m seasick and need to find a bucket STAT, matey.