October 3, 2005

Tales From The Crib

The story of oats

Jennifer Margulis

Although my Italian-American husband likes to say that he comes from a long line of cardoon-pickers (and we often buy big bunches of organic dandelion greens and sauté them in olive oil and cannellini beans to make beans and greens), we are actually all oat eaters in my family.

Even my 4-year-old daughter Athena loves oats. When she was a baby she categorically refused solid food. At seven months when we gently offered her some homemade brown rice mush she curled up her tiny lips in disinterest. At eight months we placed a fingertipful of cooked mashed carrots on her tongue and she spit it out at us with a look of disapproval. Her disinterest-turned-disgust at the homemade, organic, and lovingly prepared grains, vegetables and fruits that we offered became worrisome one night when she threw up, again and again. She slept, fussed, vomited, and then rubbed her face back and forth into the bile-soaked crib sheet. We had given her only plain yogurt and avocado, but the sleepy doctor at 2 a.m. told us that it was probably too much for her small stomach. She was fine the next day, and every day after that — until we tried again with the tiniest bit of solid food. And she threw it all up a second time.

But even as a baby, Athena would eat watery oatmeal and grin between toothless bites. Now she loves everything oat: oatmeal, rolled oats in milk, oat bread, oat muffins and oatmeal cookies.

Her older sister Hesperus, who has always been a champion eater, is the same way. When my husband sits down in the morning with a horse-sized portion of cold rolled oats, raisins, wheat germ, walnuts and sunflower seeds, Hesperus likes nothing better than to sit by his side and eat huge spoonfuls of the cold, mucky oat cereal.

James believes in the healing power of oats. Without fail, he eats them every morning and often makes himself a late-night snack of oats as well. If his stomach is the least bit sour, for whatever reason, he turns to the oat cure. "I think I’ll have a little bowl of cereal," he mutters quietly and to no one in particular.

We buy oats in such large quantities that I have considered investing in a bulk bin for our kitchen.

But finding the oats at the grocery store is not always easy. I still remember going food shopping when the girls were small and our local market was being renovated. With one girl babbling and shrieking in the grocery cart’s child seat and the other standing in the back of the cart insisting on this and cajoling for that in a voice that grew ever shriller, I had no luck locating the oats.

Two weeks before, they had been with the dried fruit in the back of the store. The next week, they were at the bottom of the bulk section. A day later, the organic rolled oats were separated from their inferior cousins, the quick-cooking oats, and put with the flour in the middle aisle of the store.

Despite my clamoring children, I managed to throw everything else we needed into the cart. A friend smiled hello and frowned at the huge pile of vegetables, multiple loaves of bread and 11 packages of whole-wheat pasta in our cart. "We eat a lot in our house," I explained sheepishly, turning my attention back to the search. Though the cart almost toppled over, we survived the treacherous trip across a floor in the dairy section. It listed so steeply that I imagined we were shipwrecked off the Pequod and in high seas with Ishmael hanging onto Queequeg’s makeshift coffin. Eventually, we found the oats.

"No more ad-er-ho-chi, ko-der-hochi," I sighed to Hesperus (Japanese for "I-want-this, I-want-that," a phrase I learned from my sister-in-law). "Time for your nap," I suggested to Athena. Then I loaded an impossible amount of groceries into the double running stroller, hoisted Athena into her backpack, squeezed Hesperus into her seat between all the groceries, and headed homeward.

My husband returned from work that day complaining of stomach troubles. I fixed him a bowl of oats.

Jennifer Margulis’s new book, "Why Babies Do That" (Willow Creek Press), will be available in bookstores everywhere. Come see a lively slide show and meet her in person on Thursday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. at Bloomsbury Books.