Making Their Lunches

< Sort of a meditation on Mother's Day, a week later >

Every morning I have to do this. Anyone else? :-)

Just earlier this evening I was out at the park, the park as the destination for after my Making Their Lunches fruit run (Hosea MUST have oranges!)! Long weekend this weekend and tomorrow they're back to school! Must! Have! FRUIT! And all errands done! While out I saw two other mom friends on...the very same errand. Looking a little frazzled, a little rushed, a little in need of a longer (long) weeekend.

Wonderful to be in good company, at least!

Anyway, another mother said to me recently that she does her lunch making at night, when she has more energy. I don't have energy at night! Nice idea, though!

Years ago, when the kids were far too young and ill equipped to do this, they made their own lunches, for school. I think I was too young and ill equipped to do it as well, that's why I passed it off to them...is that a good enough excuse? They still hassle me about this parenting mistake. "Mama, like sometimes all I'd put in my lunch was a granola bar or something."

Ok, embarassing. But if you ask me, it didn't go on that long. If you ask them...well it probably did. It was only for the girls, though! Hosea...was too little! (Ha!)

That time of my life I was very poor and very stretched and very distracted. I could've asked the low paid nanny to help me out with this task, but honestly she was already low paid enough (embarassing) for me to expect anything more! 

These days, I love making their lunches. In fact, I've probably loved it for a few years now, but lately moreso. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm less poor and less alone, and I'm older and more well equipped for such a responsibility hahahahaha. I know many parents dislike this task. Ughhhhh what to put in their lunch TODAY? It reminds me of when Therese was little, and we were asking her to do the things to get ready for bed, again. And she came out of the washroom in a total exasperated huff and said, "I just did all this last night!" 

When I get up in the morning I have a routine, as many of us do I'm sure. (I just did that yesterday morning!) More like a ritual, I suppose. Things have to be done in a certain order for it to feel right, and it's a little space time in my brain before the day crawls all over me. If Joey gets up when I do, well it's not quite right. If Simon interupts the kitchen by emptying the dishwasher too soon when I'm hello USING the kitchen (but I don't say this, with words, at least) it's not right. It's right if I'm by myself for the first 15 minutes at least, thank you very much. To put on the hot water for my tea. To splash my face with cold water to wake up, to do other bathroom things in preparation for The Day. Then plank and push ups and leg lifts (I call this the triple A morning routine: Arms Abs and A*% -- also, in my head, but now you get to hear about it too!). A nice big glass of cold water. Then, turn on the soothingly cheesy Peaceful Guitar playlist I listen to every weekday morning.

This is The Ticket! Even if my ritual is interupted, the Peaceful Guitar keeps me on track. 

I begin sipping my tea while Making Their Lunches. Pacing myself. Oh I'm making great time today!

Then I move on to my lunch, then I move on to eating breakfast, then I move on to getting dressed and getting to "work". (Ohmygosh where'd the time go I meant to leave earlier today -- tomorrow I'll be faster!)

Making their lunches is like giving them a hug. The girls don't like actual hugs all that much these days (oh gee how did that happen?!), so I guess this is my way. Sometimes I make each one at a time, other times it's more assembly-line-style. I remember hearing my mom talk about how my grandma would make bologna sandwiches for the week, on the weekend, and stack them in the freezer--she had three kids. She'd throw everyone a frozen sandwich each morning as they'd head to school (at least, that's how I picture it!). 

I'm a bit simple (too) when it comes to food. I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast every day, and the same thing for lunch each day. So, sorry kids(!) you get a "formula"! But, they're each different, so their formulas are a little different. If I had to get creative every morning and wow them I don't know what I'd do! Hosea's lunch is the best, cause he's the hungriest: a warm thermos full of some kind of leftovers (pasta, chicken and rice, hamburger...), a large orange, and maybe a mandarin too, a couple of pickles and slices of cheese, a big helping of fresh popped popcorn (now with a mix of maple syrup and butter for salty-sweet!), two homemade muffins and maybe some crunchy veggies, and always a small square of dark chocolate (his teacher one year told the kids how she eats that at lunch, and Hosea told me about it, and ever since then I put it in as a mid-day treat!). "Mama, you didn't pack me enough lunch," he sometimes says. Yikes!! He's only 10!!! How will I ever keep up with him when he has a teenage boy appetite?! Sometimes too I hear how he traded his popcorn for seaweed. (Ugh! Offended! Maybe that's why you're hungry?!) Trades are all the rage in Post-Pandemic Grade 4 I guess? Anway, Greta's, compared to Hosea's: take out the thermos, the cheese, the pickles, the orange--add in some nuts and definitely some carrot sticks, (she doesn't like my muffins?! "Mama, can you stop putting pbj in, it gets all smashed and it's not appetizing--I can just eat one at home"...ugh...)--and she's the opposite of Hosea, Hosea who comes home with NOTHING LEFT...I usually have to nag her to eat the rest of her lunch (*wait, does she actually have a lunch?* you're probably wondering...)for a snack or at dinner. But hey, she doesn't really complain. And these days she makes herself a lot of grilled cheeses. But heaven forbid she bring that to school! The sogginess!!!

I'll pause here, to add some recent developments. I used to buy bars and chips and pretzels and rice crackers and all that stuff--a little faster than popcorn and homemade muffins, a little more crunchy, but (I'm thinking) less nutritious than pickles and cheese for some salt. The last few months, though, like the change in putting on Peaceful Guitar in the morning, I've changed to putting in variations of fresh popcorn, and to making a big batch of healthy muffins or energy balls on Sunday nights to pull out of the freezer all week. It's a little more work, and maybe someday I'll bail on it, but I hope not! Because it adds that extra bit of hug.

I send them off to school with a little piece of myself -- of my love and care! And of my peace from the Peaceful Guitar playlist, hahaha. Joey watches me, if he ends up getting up in time. He doesn't need a packed lunch where he goes three days a week--his daycare makes beautiful vegetarian food and homemade yogurt! "You making TT, Saya, Gweta's lunch? You make me a lunch?" he asked recently. "Someday I'll make you a lunch too, Little Guy."

I'll pause here, to add some other recent developments. I forgot(?) TT!

No, I didn't. Just at the peak of my oh-how-i-love making their lunches, oh-how-i've-gotten so much better at making their lunches..."Hey Mama," "Yeah?" "I was thinking...would it be ok if I made my own lunch from now on?"

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? mixed with Such Pride! and sadness! and more WHAT is happening????????????????????????????????????????????????????

"Well, yeah that's fine, what are you gonna put in it?" "I don't know, I'll figure something out."

And she does. Now she knows how to make rice, for example! She makes sandwiches. She finds things. She scrounges if necessary. She has Something Different Each Day (at least, I'm pretty sure, cause I usually peer in to see what she's packing...I mean, maybe she'll give me ideas?!). 

When she leaves for school these days, she's got her lunch she's made AND...her to-go COFFEE cup! The coffee she's made herself, black with just a bit of sugar.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Anyway. Even so. I love Making Their Lunches. A little piece of me is in TT's still too, it's fine. I peer. She takes a muffin. 

Just a couple mornings ago, two months or so into her new responsibility, I heard her sigh, "What am I going to make for lunch today?" under her breath, the smell of her coffee wafting through our used-to-be coffee-less kitchen. (Is she gonna ask me to start making her lunches again?)

Is she gonna ask me to start making her lunches again?! It's ok if she does. Even though summer is coming...and no one's off to school...I can't stop. In the summer I make them lunches to take with them on their outings, or eat during their screen time or just hanging out at home...while I'm working. I could breathe that sigh of relief, "Yes! A break!" but my mornings just wouldn't feel quite right! What would I even do while listening to the Peaceful Guitar playlist?! Getting myself ready doesn't take long enough! Plus...that little piece of me for them, for the long day ahead, that hug...

Even if Therese doesn't cave, I can't imagine Hosea or Greta wanting to take over this responsibility anytime soon. HahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHA!

And Joey? My little morning toast-monster? ("More toast!" "Toast with jam and butter and peanut butter--but don't toast it!" "...But Joey, that's not toast..." "More toast! "More toast!" "You clean me?") I still have a couple years to perfect my muffin recipes for him! And my popcorn and energy ball concoctions. And where to get the best pickles.

< Muffin or popcorn or energy bar/ball recipes anyone? It won't be long before my kids are sick of the ones I've been making 💓 >