“That’s Life,” I said, doing the world’s worst Frank Sinatra impression in the Kroger breakfast aisle as I gazed upon Quaker’s new Vanilla Life cereal.

“That’s what all the people crunch. You eat it dry in April, with milk in May. But I know I’m gonna change that tune, when it’s all soggy—all soggy in June.”

Okay, now that I’ve gotten all the Weird Al Yankovic out of my system for the day, I can crunch into these brand spankin’ new and vanilla sugar sparklin’ squares.

Though it has a rather subdued box and no mascot ever since Little Mikey grew up and inspired urban legends about Pop Rocks-related deaths, Life Cereal has had many interesting varieties. From 1978’s Raisin Life to 2002’s Apple Life, multiple flavors have went through the “circle of Life,” delighting Mikeys everywhere before their eventual discontinuation.

In recent years, Quaker has stuck to a trilogy of Original, Cinnamon, and Maple Brown Sugar Life. But since Maple Brown Sugar doesn’t appear on the side of my Vanilla Life box, this newbie may have unofficially usurped his syrupy older brother.

You have to taste really good to redeem yourself now, Vanilla Life: I take any insult towards maple syrup as a personal offense.

At a glance, Vanilla Life doesn’t look any different than normal Life pieces: golden toasted and cross-hatched multigrain squares. But look a little closer and you’ll see them:

Glittery vanilla prisms as big as kosher salt, studding each square like quartz crystals in a cave wall. When eating a handful, the vanilla flavor doesn’t hit immediately, though. When square first meets taste bud, it just tastes like plain Life: half-toasted graham cracker, half-crisped corn, with a weak crunch.

But as I chewed on, the vanilla grains began to emit their crystal magic. A twist of syrupy sweet vanilla bean ribboned its way through the toasty, earthy base, slowly intensifying and pleasantly pulsing to the beat of my cereal munching.

And then it stopped. See, that’s the main problem with Vanilla Life. The squares’ fragile crunch means that every spoonful turns to disappointing, dusty nothingness just as the vanillin goodness is about to reach its peak.

It’s like spending an afternoon lovingly baking a homemade pie from scratch: kneading the dough, evening out the filling, brushing it with butter, and smelling the warm aroma as the pie bakes in the oven. Then, just as you pull it out and wait 30 minutes for the pie to cool, a clown crashes through your kitchen skylight and smushes the whole dessert into your face.

But all is not lost: this Vanilla Life just needs a little vanilla life support.

Milk doesn’t help the weak crunch and short “chew life” of the cereal, but it does infuse a natural dairy creaminess into the otherwise dry pieces. It turns the slightly biting vanilla ribbons into a more lip-smacking vanilla butteriness, and the combined flavor reminds me of a Nilla wafer or vanilla sugar wafer dipped into a tall glass of milk.

With its golden crispiness and lightly infused sweetness, Vanilla Life also reminds me of those pre-crumbled waffle cone pieces they include as toppings in frozen yogurt shops. Because of this, Vanilla Life works as another great vanilla yogurt mix-in cereal. Dunking a spoonful of Vanilla Life into ultra-creamy yogurt reminded of one other, particularly nostalgic snack:

Dunkaroos!

Sorry for the overexcitement, but I needed to appropriately punctuate the experience. Sure, Vanilla Life may not be flavorful enough for those with a youthful sweet tooth, and it may fizzle out in a few chews like a sad edible firecracker, but if you want some grown-up Dunkaroos for breakfast, this cereal is worth a try.

Now where’s my Nobel Peace Prize for being the first and last human to ever use “sad edible firecracker” and “grown-up Dunkaroos” in the same sentence?

The Bowl: Quaker Vanilla Life Cereal

The Breakdown: A pitiable “crunch” and a below average sweetness aren’t enough to keep this Nilla Wafer/waffle cone/Dunkaroos cereal from being above average in my book.

The Bottom Line: 7.5 Quaker quartz crystals (try saying that 7.5 times fast) out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 120 calories, 2 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein per 3/4 cup serving)