I can see it, smell it, and almost touch it.
It’s the light at the end of the tunnel.
And by tunnel I mean my daughter’s school year.
In two weeks I will enjoy a treasured reprieve from the worst mom job ever—packing school lunches.
I abhor the near daily ritual, which hurts my brain, as much as it does my wallet.
I’ve endured this penitent practice for nearly three years and I still haven’t figured out what I can pack that my now 8-year-old won’t toss into the school’s 80-gallon garbage barrel.
Aside from the torment of devising a viable menu, I am forced to deal with the incomprehensible waste that occurs when I pack school lunches.
My fickle kid only exacerbates the cycle of frustration that goes something like this:
Kid falls head over heels in love with particular lunch item; mother rejoices; kid begs mom to stock up on item; mother obliges; kid comes home after a week eating said “favorite” item and vows never to let it pass her lips again.
Believe it or not, the last part of that sequence is a major revelation.
For months, I thought I was the greatest mom on the face of the planet because my kid came home with a completely empty lunch box. What’s more, she’d come home hungry. Naturally, I concluded that I wasn’t packing her enough to eat and would stuff even more food into her Scooby bag. Little did I know that all those late nights spent filling tiny Tupperware containers with healthy, kid-friendly treats was all for naught. Turns out my daughter was unabashedly dumping the three-course lunches I packed straight into the cafeteria trash.
Her reasoning: “I wasn’t hungry for what you packed me.”
Had I just filled her lunch box exclusively with chocolate chip cookies…
Needless to say, I made some drastic changes to my kid’s lunch, though not all of them have been successful.
Hopefully, I’ll figure it out before she leaves for college.
I keep reminding myself: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”