Peanut butter isn't easy to find in Guatemala, and its expensive, and its not chunky Skippy, so it really doesn't count anyway.  And really, that is the case with most specialty food items from the U.S..  Earlier this week I had a meeting with a parent who happened to be from the states.  After we got done talking business, we continued chatting about her child, and I mentioned that I noticed her eating Chef Boyardee raviolis for lunch one day, and that it brought me back.  Not that raviolis, or that kind anyway, are incredibly delicious, but that its a taste you can count on and its familiar.  Folks from the states rush to McDonalds the minute they get pangs on homesickness for the same reason.  Though awful, it is a taste remains the same no matter where you go, and its comforting.

I wasn't in my office on Monday for most of the day, but when I returned, I found this can sitting on my desk.  On Tuesday, I ate the raviolis (which were not as good as I remember) with the first graders during lunch, and heard about the upcoming Christmas pageant, and how they predict they could eat a whole elephant if they were hungry enough.  We also debated the merits of dried seaweed and how nasty mushrooms are, and then they ran off to recess and probably forgot the whole thing.  As for me, it made my day.  Their silliness and seriousness about life in elementary was light and renewing, and they are just downright hilarious.

In this month, where we celebrate how grateful we are to have one another, I find myself thankful for the small things like raviolis and the push to hang with my littles.