It's Just Peanut Butter - Photography

When my boys were young, they had a fun stage then where all they ate were peanut butter sandwiches. We have since worked on their varieties in food, but during that time we had peanut butter and peaches almost every day. I still remember slathering the plain peanut butter on a piece wheat bread and folding it in half, packing in a bag, and leaving the house for our adventures in the Valdez summer sun.

During the same time my mop-haired wild man loved to hide things. Every day that my husband left for work, he would stick his foot in his boot and find toys who had "fallen to their death" in his shoes. He learned to dump his shoes even before he stuck a toe in, eventually. We would find toys in drawers, cupboards. Even the washing machine.

My introvert ginger was a little scientist. Ever dinner would end in food stuck in the cup. I would get so irritated that soggy bread, veggies, and peaches had to be dunked in the drink every meal. He just had to see what happened! Once I finally realized he was doing experiments, it made me much less frustrated. Though the soggy cups gave me a lot of extra work, still the same.

One morning I went to take the kids out of the house, and my keys were just gone. One of my worst qualities is losing things. A natural consequence of losing things is becoming incredible at finding them! I searched everywhere. In the shoes, in the cupboards. I scoured the toys and the car. Maybe they fell in the grass. Nope. For days I looked. They weren't even in the shoes! The stress started to rise to new levels on day two when we had to start making plans of "What if we don't ever find the keys?" We live in a small rural town in Alaska. How do we get a replacement key while living in Valdez? Will we have to order from the dealership? Will it take two weeks to ship? And the scariest thought of all; Am I going to be stuck at home with my wild toddlers for weeks?

Luckily, a constant that will never end until the day I die is feeding my kids. I will think about it twelve times a day for the rest of my life. While lying in my casket at my funeral, I will awake to tell someone what's on the menu for dinner. That day years ago, that constant was exactly the solution to my problem. No one can solve problems on an empty stomach, anyway!

The kids ran around my feet while I reached for the ever-reliable loaf of bread and jar of JIF. I opened the jar of peanut butter, pulled a butterknife from the drawer, and dipped it in the creamy brown. Something felt weird. I pulled the knife out and couldn't believe my eyes. A foreign object in the butter covered completely. There they were! My keys were hidden in the peanut butter. I washed them off, while exclaiming my appreciation for the obsession of peanut butter in my house, laughing all the while.

To this date, I have had my DVDs hidden, air pods, a spaghetti squash stored in the stuffed animal bin; We've found phones in heater vents. The keys in the peanut butter are the tippy top of all hidden items.

Between the two boys, I still don't know which one did it. Maybe they did it together. I'd like to think they were plotting against the car and getting into the car seats they hated. All in all, they gave me a great story to smile about and tell their friends when I want to embarrass them.

Thank goodness for peanut butter.