Lunch Box Vacation

I am an orderly girl, so every night of the school year before I go to bed I pre-pack JT's lunchbox, placing within it the items that don't require refrigeration. A piece of fruit. A water bottle. Some cookies. Pretzels or crackers or garlic bagel chips (the teacher must hate me when she sees that baggie exiting the lunch box). A fruit roll-up (does this even count as food?). I leave it there on the counter to await the final touches come the morning. The next day, I finish packing the boy's lunchbox as I sip my first cup of coffee, desperately hoping that the caffeine will provide inspiration.

No kid in the history of kid-dom has ever come home from school, thrown his arms around his mama, and thanked her for the contents of the day's lunch box. Instead, what you hear is a steady rumble of dissatisfaction. I could write an entire book on the lunch box conversations that have occurred in my house since JT began carrying a lunchbox to preschool 5 years ago.

"R always has Oreos in his lunch." Please forgive me for making home baked goods when a pre-packaged corporate-cookie would be so much better.

"D eats sushi for lunch." And I am filled with envy, because JT would never consider such adventuresome eating. He'd sooner die than eat cooked fish, never mind the raw.

"I am sick of fruit rolls ups." And yet I am certain that some days a fruit roll up is all that stands between the boy and a full-blown case of scurvy.

On one memorable occasion, JT announced, "I will never again eat a ham sandwich." Panic seized the kitchen staff (that would be me): what would be the new replacement main dish?

So it was with great fanfare that I emptied out the lunchbox for the final time last Wednesday afternoon. For the next three months, the yawning empty mouth of the lunchbox will not be the first thing I see in the morning. In September, when school resumes, I'll be a sucker for countless articles in magazines promising yummy, nutritious lunches that my child will love. I will pack some of those lunches, filled with hope that 3rd grade will be different.

Ha.