Raising Devils

Lunch, and all the Angst it Entails

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 2 Comments

Lily slipped into the bathroom yesterday and very nicely asked “Have you packed my lunch yet?”

I’ve made your sandwich, but not the rest. Why?

Can I do it? Can I do it and have FOUR THINGS?

Wyatt and Sam were both down with a touch of flu, so the morning rush was both eased and compromised–so why not? One fruit, I told her, and a little of whatever else you want.

I gave her two containers and she put in popcorn, and three small belgian sugar cookies that I didn’t even know she liked. (They taste like burnt sugar and are a little addiction of my mom’s and mine, although I haven’t eaten them since she was last here–packaged cookies aren’t a particular vice of mine. I like chips.)

Rob drove to school, and when he got there, Lily’s teacher told him she’d cried at lunch every day last week because she didn’t like what she’d been given. So boy, did we sound like good parents when he assured her that today, things should be different!

And apparently they were. I told Lily, after school, that I liked how she’d solved her problem, although she could also have told me that she was unhappy. And this morning, we did it again–I’d already cut up carrots and added the special little mini plastic dressing containers that everyone loves to use, and Lily loves carrots, so I knew that would work. I let her choose cereal and sent in milk. I let her choose two more things, leading to cheese crackers and pudding (annoyingly, she wanted many, many healthy and fiber-filled granola bars, but they all had nuts in them. Must restock those.)

And she left happy. I wasn’t, necessarily, because there was cereal all over the floor, and because I had to let the other two littles choose too, leading to a much different and slower morning than we need, but it’s clearly time for a lunch routine change.  That said, we really can’t do it in the mornings–or if we do, it can’t be adding more than one thing. So here’s my plan. From now on, Lily and Sam make their lunches–and the littles lunches–at night. Littles get whatever sandwich or main Lily gets, unless they are present and choose differently. Lily makes it. Littles may fill their own small snack containers–we’ll see. But in essence, what I’m thinking is that Lily choosing lunch makes more work for me–because typically I make more than one night’s sandwiches at a time–so she’s going to need to make up for that by doing little’s lunches too. We shall see if it works, or how long it lasts. I also have an alternate plan in mind in which everyone gets to fill just the snack container in the am. But oh, so much ANGST as goes into lunch-making. My mom gave me a “lunch meat” sandwich, chips and a Twinkie or its ilk every single day. In baggies, which I then threw away without thinking twice. Ah, the bad old days…

JK gets the Tinkerbell DVD and my gratitude for a whole list of new lunch choices–esp. now that lunch is branching out! Her kids eat way less sugar than mine, clearly. There’s a new study suggesting that sugar (and fat) recolonize the bacteria in your gut…I’m not opposed to sugar or fat, but I’m beginning to think my definition of “moderation” needs adjustment. (This from a person sitting here with a frosted cruller and a mocha.) I’m also relieved that JK WANTS the Tinkerbell dvd (which turned out to be quite good, I’ll link to my review later)–because if she’d said oh, my kids don’t watch any tv, I would have had to find her and kill her.

Tags: contest, food, lunch

Feed ‘Em Real Food, and Acquire My Copy of Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure

Monday, November 9th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 5 Comments

Somehow these two things don’t go together very well…But I am reviewing Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure this week, and I know it’s not one we’ll want to watch again (we’re not really much for watching movies over and over; we tend towards shorter shows so that more kids can have their favorite). I’d love for someone else to enjoy it, especially if there are any real Tinkerbell fans out there (full disclosure: the first Tinkerbell movie only lasted five minutes here, as both Wyatt (then 2) and Lily (then 4) found it way too scary.)

I’m reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, and his mantra–Eat food, not too much of it, mostly plants–has really resonated with me. I lost almost fifteen pounds in the three weeks we spent in China this summer by inadvertently following his advice (Cheez-its and Oreos being in short supply  over there, and although I like Pocky as much as the next girl, I’m not going to get fat on it). 

I know I’m better and healthier if I eat real food–as in, food you can define, food with ingredients you recognize, food that you could imagine cooking yourself. That can include french fries, but it lets Pop Tarts right out of the picture.  

I’m thinking of starting a month-long household challenge (for a magazine piece) to eat nothing but actual food, but I can see two problems ahead: one, actual food takes time (tonight we had a full-on meal of fish, brussel sprouts and salad, and I swear I spent all afternoon chopping one way or another, then made both applesauce  and applesauce bread for tomorrow–and there you have my day, which would be fine if I didn’t have a job). Two, my kids like things with powdered cheese on them, and there is really no way to finesse powdered cheese into the definition of “food” unless you can imagine yourself somehow powdering it. I think I could sell Sam on the project, but the others just aren’t going to get it.

I will clearly have to settle for “improvement,” for a lot of reasons. anyone have any excellent ideas for replacing the fake foods that fill my pantry with real ones that the kids will still love? Packing lunch, in particular, is looking like a tough one to me.

I’m no fanatic–I let them eat Halloween candy until they got bored with it (even Rory’s forgotten about it, a miracle in and of itself). I just want to see less maltodextrin and Xantham gum in what we eat. Plus as much as I like small crunchy snacks, I think we’re getting a little too dependent on them, and that’s not a good habit in the long run!

Tags: contest, food