Yummy - that's what I thought of Peeps. Yes, Peeps - the marshmallow treats, chicks and bunnies, pastel colors, most people only buy them for the Easter baskets because they're pretty. I even joined the "Peeps fan club" once upon a time. I've got the t-shirt, cap and member card to prove it! But I was crushed this week when I bought a box of Peeps and tried to eat a few on the way home (car calories don't count, right?) - they tasted like cardboard! How could this have happened? I was the Peep queen - my mom would mail them to me when I was in college! When I lived in England, I learned the term "gone off". It means you don't like something anymore. "I've gone off Chinese food since it made me sick..." I guess I've gone off Peeps. Have they changed? Is it my taste buds? Did I simply age out of the marshmallow/sugar taste? Why can't things stay yummy?
Yummy was Easter with little four and six-year-old girls. They had beautiful new dresses with white buckle shoes and lacy socks. They truly believed that the Easter bunny had eaten those carrots and left those dirt prints on the carpet. They went to church with me and listened and bowed their little heads to pray. They ran all over the back garden after church, hunting the eggs that Dad had hidden, the older sister helping the younger one, and even sharing with her. Those were yummy years.
I suppose I would have gone off the four and six-year-old age had we managed to get stuck there. Anything can grow old. As I write this, I'm thinking "What's yummy about the college age kid?" There are answers. True answers. The college age kid has to do their work on their own and make decent grades. That's happening. And it's yummy. It's just not as cute or frilly or fun. The college age kid has to decide what kind of adult they are going to be.....no small task in today's world. I find it extremely yummy that my 18 and 20-year-old girls always find themselves on the fair side of any issue. Right now, they are almost fair to the point of being liberal bleeding hearts, but that's college kids, eh? Those are the kind of people that can end up making a difference in this world, and I'm so pleased to see that little truths I taught them at ages four and six have matured into caring, sensitive attitudes-sometimes mixed with outspokenness and activism-at ages eighteen and twenty.
So, come to think of it, there is still some yummy around here - it's just a much more mature flavor of yummy that the child-like sweets. I've gone off a few more things besides Peeps in the past fifteen years, but I will never go off loving my children and the adults that they are becoming. I can only hope that they find their own yummy - in every stage of their lives. Happy Easter, everyone.
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