Wednesday, August 31, 2016

DIY with B, part 2

As you know, B and I did some DIY-ing last weekend.  If you haven't read the first post, please go back and see our epic fail.

Besides the candy, B really wanted to make cereal.  The girl on the video ensured that it would easy and delicious. She also claimed you could change the world by changing the things you add to the cereal after it's done.  B was hooked - he wants to change the world.  I was skeptical, at best, after the candy.

Skeptical or not, I trotted off to the dollar store to gather the ingredients.  The girl was right about one things, the ingredients weren't expensive - oats, butter, sugar and salt.  I also picked up a foil baking pan because she cooked her cereal in a roasting pan and I don't have one of those.

B was able to help more with this recipe as it did not involve constantly stirring a 200 degree liquid.  Nor did it include pouring a 300 degree liquid. Here he is getting the foil because we're supposed to cook the oats with the lid on.

The recipe was very easy.  The challenging part for B was that the oats have to cook for 45 minutes with the lid on then another 15 minutes with the lid off.  But he kept himself busy getting ready for the cereal.

He found a box, because cereal comes in a box, duh! He quickly realized he couldn't make a fish stick box look like a cereal box so he grabbed some paper.  He decided to call his cereal Jungle Flakes.  He decorated it with pictures of characters from the Jungle Book.

It was getting late, for me, by the time the cereal was done.  I was done.  It was probably 9:30, I'm not a night owl.  I wanted to let the cereal sit over night.  B wasn't having it. Thankfully, Zac is a bit of a chef so he stepped in to help while I went to bed.  

They wanted to dehydrate some bananas to go in the cereal but decided instead to put in some dried strawberries and bananas we bought at Sam's Club earlier that day.  They also added Craisins.  
When I got up Sunday morning, I was impressed.  The cereal looked good.  It was in a ziploc baggie inside the fish stick/Jungle Flake box. Because that's how cereal comes, mom! In a bag inside a box.  I tried some and it was pretty good.  Ryan and the boys liked it too. 

B was so proud of his cereal! He took 2 baggies of cereal to his teachers Monday morning.  I was just happy that it turned out the way he anticipated. He loves watching those DIY/hacking videos and loves to try things out.  Sometimes I put him off - we've got some place to be, we don't have the supplies, I don't want to make anything right now.  I'm glad I didn't put him off this weekend. 

He learns so much by doing.  With the candy he learned that things don't have to go exactly right to be good.  That's a lesson he needs every day! With the cereal, he learned that he could create something for other people to enjoy.  He can't verbalize those lessons yet but I could see it.  

And nothing bets the look of accomplishment when he showed off his creations to his brothers.  Or when Ryan poured a bowl of Jungle Flakes for breakfast Monday morning!

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