With my past pregnancies I didn’t have the pregnant-lady weird craving thing, most just food aversions. Green stuff and orange stuff was pretty much out; otherwise, if it was edible, I ate it. Although, does love to tell the story of that one time I was pregnant with Gal Smiley, and I asked him to get me a hot dog from the Dairy Queen drive through. Upon reception of the hot dog I huddled over it in a corner of the car in a feral position that loudly proclaimed, “Touch my hot dog and DIE, MOTHERFUCKER!” It was a pretty good hot dog.
This time around I’ve had a couple of actual cravings. In the early days it was all about the orange juice — I had to have several cups a day. After that I went through a melted cheese phase, where if you had put melted cheese on an old hard drive, I probably would have eaten it. Lately I’ve been kind of into an oatmeal thing.
Yesterday, while grocery shopping with Gal Smiley, I was headed for the checkout when I passed a display of cereals. Suddenly a rumbly voice inside me said, “BUY THE SHREDDIES.” I just HAD to have the Shreddies. Nothing was coming between me and Shreddies. I became an unstoppable Shreddie machine, which is weird, since I haven’t paid that particular brand too much attention in the past.
I raced to the checkout with my prize, where the poor checkout lady had to deal not only with me, and my unspoken, “Check out the Shreddies first, lady, and no one gets hurt,” but also Gal Smiley’s growling, which meant, “Give back the Care Bears Jelly Fruit Snacks RIGHT NOW or I’m going to have to get medieval on your ass!” We raced to the car and once I gave Gal Smiley her Care Bears Snacks, I jumped in the driver’s seat and opened the box of Shreddies.
We were on our way to pick up the Captain from nursery school and on the way there, I ate about half the box. In 10 minutes. Since then I’ve had several more handfuls, basically scooping some out every time I pass the kitchen. This box probably won’t last past the weekend. I should have bought the Club Pack size!
I guess the baby is happy because I haven’t heard any more scary voices…but I hope it doesn’t come out looking like a giant Shreddie. Hey, there’s a name idea…Shreddie TurtleHead!
TurtleHead 
When my mom was here a couple of months ago, she asked us to buy her some Shreddies, and I was flabbergasted to find that they don’t appear to be available here. I’ve never been into them, but my impression is that they are a very basic kind of cereal.
I totally relate to the non-craving pregnancy experience. I used to fantasize about how, when I was pregnant, I would make get up in the middle of the night and rush out to buy all kinds of weird snack combinations for me. But it never happened. I really only ate food as a survival mechanism, and I would have been happier to not eat at all. I even passed up a meal at Swiss Chalet while pregnant. I know, I know, crazy. What I wouldn’t give for some Swiss Chalet for dinner tonight ..
Ah, Shreddies. I’m over them now, which is good because (as points out) you can’t get them here. But they were a late-night snack mainstay for most of my teenage years and beyond, I think — almost certainly my favorite cereal for several years running.
So do you ever eat them with milk, or is it always dry? I always ate them with sugar, although back then I put sugar on every non-sugared cereal, whereas now I never do.
Whoa! I was okay with the craving part, but the fact that you had to open it and nearly finish it in the car on the way home totally cracked me up!
Oh man, I am a total victim of the “I’m pregnant, therefore I can eat whatever the hell I want” syndrome. If offered Swiss Chalet I think I could eat a whole chicken! Sadly, I will be paying for it a year from now as I struggle to lose the weight.
One time told me that one thing you really hate to do is eat, and if you could replace all nourishment with a pill you would happily do so. At the time I didn’t think eating was such a trial but I’ve thought about this a lot over the years, and I believe I will join you. I hate, hate, hate cooking, but even more than that, I’ve come to view eating itself as a chore. It’s so annoying the way we need to halt everything several times a day to snack, and I hate the way I get so unreasonably cranky just because I need to eat, and there’s never anything good in the fridge or pantry. If only we had been born in the 26th century…I’m sure they will have this figured out by then!
I haven’t bought Shreddies in years, but when I used to eat them on occasion, I always bought Honey Shreddies, which came pre-coated with sugar. Super yummy, and because of the coating, they stayed super crunchy in milk, which I loved. In general I’m a dry cereal gal, because I can’t stand mushy cereal, and heaven knows this particular box of Shreddies isn’t going to see any milk, because I can’t possibly wait, once they are out of the box, for me to take the long, long three steps over to the fridge and take the long, long two minutes it would take to pour milk over them. MUST EAT SHREDDIES NOW!
I can’t believe you can’t get Shreddies in the States. They’re made by Post — isn’t that an American company? I wonder, if we did an item by item comparison, what other cereals are missing (or, like Special K, radically different) in California. Next time we are down for a visit I intend to investigate…maybe publish a paper :).
Yup, Post is owned by Kraft (apparently), which is American. However, the Shreddies are Canadian-only for some reason. I had thought maybe it was a regional thing, but a search for Shreddies on Post’s U.S. website turned up nothing.
Oh, and now I’ve just looked up the Wikipedia entry for Shreddies, and sure enough, it says there that they’re only sold in Canada, the U.K. and New Zealand.