Jumpy Balls

We have been on pantry probation for a little over a week. I was trying my best to make meals from what we have around. I've done a pretty good job with it and have found some things along the way that I'd forgotten I had. The 5 pound bag of frozen cranberries, for instance.

Wondergirl loves cranberries. She always has. When she was in speech therapy, her therapist encouraged us to talk to her constantly. I did. Not being one to baby talk, I explained things to her. One of those things being how cranberry farmers separate the bad cranberries from the good. Cranberries bounce like little balls when they are fresh. The bad ones won't, so somewhere I read that the bounce test is how you easily separate the good cranberries from the bad. I thought bouncing fruit was fascinating, and apparently Wondergirl did too because a year later, at age 3, she confounded me one day by asking me to buy "jumpy balls" while we were in the fruit section. (which shows you that pre-verbal does NOT mean pre-comprehension!) I had no idea what she was talking about. After a lot of frustration I figured it out. And I bought a bag of jumpy balls. Which she ate, raw, in about two days. The thought of eating raw cranberries makes my face hurt a little bit, but WG is all over them. She just ate some this afternoon, in fact. I'm sticking to muffins.