Good grief, school days are again upon us. And, while I look forward to the routine, cooler temperatures and Autumn holidays, what I am not excited about, are school lunches. Amiright?! They vex me so…I am out of ideas, my kids won’t eat my Pinterest-inspired cold pasta skewers and frankly I could not be bothered to fiddle with such labour intensive and ingredient rich menu items anymore. I don’t even care about the healthful aspect at this point…packaged deli-meat and vacuum sealed apple slices? yay!
What happened to me? I used to love a challenge and looked forward to providing super fun food that my kids would actually eat…now I can barely keep the fridge stocked with ketchup. Well, I will tell you what happened…my kids turned into teenagers and their appetites grew exponentially and I can hardly go a day without stepping into a grocery store to replenish the dwindling stocks. To all those new parents out there who obsess about their children’s food aversions or worry their kid will eat only peanut butter and jam or that they aren’t getting the RDA of “fill-in-the-nutritive” it will pass. Trust me, one day they will turn into walking stomachs and eat their weight in, well everything…and then some! I cannot count on the left-overs being left, any un-prepared food not being consumed and even the questionable box of mark-down quinoa cookies was returned to the shelf empty. It’s the sheer volume of food required to keep everyone full that has me dreading lunch duty. Extra sandwiches, multiple servings of yesterday’s dinner, several pieces of fruit, bags of cut veg, cookies, crackers, snacks, drinks…times 3 kids. Invention is out, quantity is in! You would think that would make things easier but somehow, providing a veritable smorgasbord of items daily is kind of challenging and I don’t have that much space in my pantry to store this amount of food so that brings me back to the daily shopping trips.
I know a Mom who just gives her kids cash at the beginning of the week… Genius! But I don’t think that would work so well in my house. I would have to have rules around appropriate meal choices otherwise my kids would eat ramen every day without a single green vegetable and/or piece of fruit to counteract the effects of excessive sodium ingestion and although I mentioned not being over-concerned with ‘the healthful aspects’ of said lunches these days, the recent dental bills at my house would suggest a re-look at the diets my kids have been enjoying of late in order to preserve the remaining healthy teeth they have in their heads.
Suffice to say, I am not ready to give up the job just yet…the takeaway from this month’s missive?
I better go shopping!