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Apparently many Moms look forward to their
kids being on summer vacation. Is it the time spent with their
kids? Could be. The lack of routine? Maybe. The elimination
of the homework routine? Absolutely. Surprisingly though,
the one thing I hear from Moms over and over again which totally
perplexes me in terms of a “benefit” of the children
not going to school is this:
“I don’t have to make lunches.”
What, the kids don’t eat lunch in
the summer? Isn’t it inherently easier to make all the
lunches in the morning (or the night before), instead of chasing
the kids around the house for an hour asking what they want
for lunch? And then not having what they want, hearing them
complain about how you’re making it, and then watching
them sneak food from the snack cupboard while you’re
doing it?
I love giving my kids food that they will
be eating somewhere else so that I don’t have to be
there to listen to the litany of complaints which I regularly
get during the “face-time” of breakfast and dinner.
If I make it and put it into their lunch, once they flip open
that soggy bag at their desks they have limited options:
1) Eat it all and tell the other kids how
their Mom is the best. Hahahahahaha.
2) Eat only the good bits (cookies, chips,
etc) and throw out the fruit and sandwiches
3) Trade away all the fruit and sandwiches
for some other hapless kid’s cookies and chips
4) Don’t eat it and suck it up. The
lunch supervisor doesn’t care that you don’t like
the crusts or the angle of the knife cut on your ham sandwich.
5) Whine to the kid beside you about how
much you the hate your lunch, only to have them respond with
“Have you ever tried licking a cat?”
I recently went on a field trip where we
had to bring ours, and our children’s lunches. When
my seven year-old son and I sat down to eat lunch I was amazed
at the disparity of the offerings. My son had his regular
white bread and jam sandwich, with some cookies, a pear and
a small chocolate. Yawn. He ate half the sandwich, the chocolate,
two bites of the pear and the chocolate. And then threw the
rest out. Since I don’t have to listen to his “I’m
so hungry” whining in the afternoon when he’s
back in class, I let him do it. But I didn’t really
need to know he did that with his lunch. Somehow, I was thinking
that while at home he’ll not offer to take fruit, eat
a whole sandwich or skip the chocolate option, I was sure
that at school he would be exemplary in his eating habits.
Do you see what I’m saying about the lunch angle, ladies?
Nope, for me the real benefit of the
kids finishing school at the end of June is…wait a minute…I’ll
come up with something…oh yeah. They go to sleepover
camp for a month in July. Where they claim that “the
lunches are awesome! No offence, Mom”. None taken.
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Read Funny Mummy every month. Follow
Kathy on twitter at www.twitter.com/kathybuckworth.
Kathy’s latest book “The BlackBerry Diaries:
Adventures in Modern Motherhood” is available at
bookstores everywhere. |
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