Chocolate Banana Almond Butter Cookies (Paleo)

I asked Q (hubby) the other day if he ever thought about his parents when he moved out of the house for the first time. If I remember correctly,  I thought about mine all the time, especially my mom. I was 18 and moved across Canada to go to school. I called her as often as we could afford. Remember, this was back in the day when cell phones didn’t exist and as poor college students, we had to make collect calls back home, which always cost a small fortune. It had to be really important if you were going to call, and you had better rehearse what you were going to say so that you didn’t waste one precious minute!

This might be the difference between boys and girls, or perhaps just personality, but Q said that he didn’t really think about his parents a lot. This, of course, broke my heart because my two boys have just left the nest and I was wondering the day if they think about me as much as I think about them.

It’s a weird stage, kind of heart wrenching and glorious all at the same time. Of course I want my kids to go off into the world and explore and be challenged out from under my cape of protection. It’s why I’ve raised them and it makes me proud to see that they can do life on their own. At the same time, sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe because I miss them so much. How do you go from talking to them every single day for 20 years, to maybe once a week?

Ok, I’m landing the plane now…

I was having coffee with a friend the other day and saw a piece of banana bread for sale at the counter. My mind immediately jumped to when I would make banana bread for the kids. They would jump in and help me mash the bananas, or stir the batter, and then we would all enjoy a slice with butter (Do you see what I’m saying?? Everything is reminding me of them).So I stopped at the grocery store, quickly scanned Pinterest for a healthy version of banana bread, but these delicious little cookies popped into the feed instead.

There’s no profound lesson here. I miss my kids, I think of them lots, and I wanted to remind myself of some of the little things we did together, so I made these cookies. I have to remember to allow myself moments to express and feel exactly how I do. It’s cathartic and it allows me to voice my gratitude for the opportunity to spend those 20 years with my 3 darlings.

On a side note, Quentin just walked in on me crying and  writing this and asked if I was going to tag the boys in this post so that they would change their minds and move back home. Lol, umm no. I told him this was just a quick blog post before the recipe I am posting. He said, “What’s the recipe called? Come Home Boys Bread”???

Yep, that’s what I’m calling it.

 

In a medium bowl, place the first 5 ingredients.

Mix together with a spatula and add in raisins or chocolate chips (optional), but leave out chocolate chips to stay Paleo.

Drop onto parchment lined cookie sheet and bake in a 350f oven for 10-12 minutes. Let cool and enjoy! These freeze well.