the kims from south korea are genius!

I tried out the Giant Eagle Market District grocery store. Gotta say, I love love love it! It is a combination of a traditional grocery/kitchen store, with a little Whole Foods  thrown in. I am sure this store has been open forever, or at least since we started working on bringing the tiny toddler home, but news of it's arrival in Upper Arlington had not yet pierced my bubble. Another casualty of the crazy busy job I walked away from - officing from home and traveling every week did not leave a lot of room for keeping up on what was happening in the world at large. Toss in burying my mother, two trips to Russia, finalizing an adoption, keeping up with my big four and a half year old, and bonding with a tiny toddler and it seems there was just no time to keep up on what my local Giant Eagle was up to. But oh, the time I have missed. I could have been shopping at this amazing store all this time. Sigh...

Not only did I find everything I needed and so many things I didn't know I needed but realized I could no longer live without, I found these:

The tiny toddler and I enjoyed this tasty (and healthy) snack in Russia, and then again at the South Korean airport. If you have never had them, TASTE THEM NOW.

They are hard to find because they are made fresh in a "popping machine" and so are not readily available. My little man loved to play with these as well as eat them while we waited out our time in our tiny Russian motel room. They are low calorie and healthy, so I didn't mind how much he ate. The only reason I even bought them in Russia was because my tiny toddler, who, for unknown reasons would be wound up tight while in the motel room and then appear sickly and totally exhausted in public, raised his head off the grocery cart handle where he had been resting it as he slept in the baby seat and grabbed the bag off of a passing shelf. Not wanting a total melt down of a toddler I barely knew in a crowded grocery store in a foreign county, I let him hold the bag and, ultimately, purchased the mysterious snack.

While in South Korea waiting for our flight to Japan we stopped to watch the Magic Pop being made. An older Korean man dressed all in white stood behind a huge metal contraption churning out different flavors of the snack cake, most of which I was not brave enough to try. I did get a strawberry one for my new son though, which he happily munched on while we waited for our boarding call.

Today at Giant Eagle the man behind the large metal machine was making original, strawberry, and cinnamon flavored Magic Pops. The oh so much better than rice cakes treat transported me right back to that little motel room in Vladivostok. Back to when it was just me and my new son, alone and together for every minute of the day. Back to when he became my shadow, forced to trail after me down the hall as I washed our clothes in the community washer or settled our weekly bill at the front desk. Back to when we would spend hours laying on the double bed, listening to music on the computer mixed with the rain outside the window. Back to when my tiny toddler would sit on the floor in the tiny motel room kitchen quietly taking the Magic Pop and the bread out of the plastic bags and playing with them. I don't normally let my kids play with food but endless hours in a motel room with a 24 month old will weaken your resolve, as well as force you to totally throw out the 5 second rule. Back to the first few weeks of mothering my youngest son. And anything that can instantly take me back to when my boys were babies is a good thing!