Fruits and Vegetables in their Lunchbox

Growing up around teachers, I often heard them discuss what was in their students’ lunchboxes. Poorly chosen, pre-packaged contents were the root of all kinds of social, academic, and general confidence issues.

“Well, no wonder she can’t sit still.”

“The poor thing.”

“What is his mother thinking? Do you see what he brings for lunch?!” 

So as a mother, I know I may be judged by what I put in my boys’ lunchboxes. With that in mind, I include a piece of fruit or a little bag of celery and carrots nearly every day.

And every day, they come back home in the lunchboxes untouched.

Yet I soldier on, including these healthy snacks on a daily basis, purely to demonstrate my good-mommy skills for the teachers, knowing the effort is wasted on my kids.

I will put the carrots on the table at dinner or re-send the orange slices the next day, only to eventually have to throw them out because they have gone bad.

Apparently, my children haven’t learned the art of veggie-dumping, because I hear that school cafeteria trashcans are filled with uneaten healthy foods sent in by well-meaning, approval-seeking moms like me. I also know of kids who bully and beg for tastier snacks from classmates because their moms only pack nutrient-packed foods they won’t eat. Not today. Not tomorrow. Certainly not in college when they overdose on pizza, beer and chips because they’ve been staring down big plates of kale for eighteen years.

Maybe we have become so accepting of pre-packaged Lunchables that teachers no longer notice what’s in their students’ lunchboxes. Maybe teachers no longer sit at lunch with the kids they teach. So my efforts are as wasted as the rotting fruit. Maybe, as my boys claim, a twenty-minute lunch period is not long enough to chew on a piece of celery. They start with what fills them up. No time for an orange slice.

And yet, tomorrow when I open their lunchboxes at the end of the day, there will be an apple with one bite taken out of it, an untouched bag of raw vegetables, the same six slices of an orange that went in that morning. The cafeteria trashcan will again be filled with discarded vegetables. I cannot count the number of blackened bananas I have found days later in the front pocket of a backpack.

Still, the day after that, kids everywhere – mine included – will have to move the carrots out of the way to get to the sandwich. And maybe one day they will understand that our futile persistence was one of the weird ways we showed them we care.

 

 

Proud of My Guy

Early this month, at my ten-year-old boy’s annual check-up, we learned that he had gained too much weight over the year. He was already on the edge, but previously, the pediatrician had not been too concerned. She was expecting an elusive growth spurt that she was certain would thin him out.

But he is a low-energy kid who likes to eat. And the growth spurt went out, not up.

I was concerned that he is too young to have the discussion about weight, and I did not want such a discussion to hurt his confidence. So I had put it off.

At the appointment, however, his pediatrician responded that he is at the age where he needs to take responsibility for it, and that he is too old to have such a limited number of foods he will eat. Early sensory issues, she said, are no longer acceptable excuses.

Pasta with butter – and lots of it – had proved his poison.

The first ten days following the check-up were rough. He would get in the car after school and start crying that he was starving, and “I know what you’re going to say! Have a banana! I don’t want a banana!”

He talked about food so much that I realized just how often he’d been snacking through the day. Most often it was leftover pasta with butter.

I switched to whole wheat pasta for the two times a week he is now allowed to have it. I got soups and fruit for snacks, left cutup carrots and celery out when I was cooking dinner, and started making him eat more at breakfast, but less the rest of the day. We upped the protein and milk intake.

He cried a lot. He was furious at me. He expressed his rage that the world is unfair.

Then suddenly, after ten days, it all stopped. He stopped talking about being hungry. He stopped talking about food in general. He stopped throwing temper tantrums when I handed him half a banana.

And then, he and his Dad made a deal about running a timed mile. Since they shook on the deal, my ten-year-old has run a mile every day. He is already running it more than a minute faster than he did on Day 1.

I have run with him a few times to keep him company. The kids down the street have watched him. Two days ago they ran the last half-block with him cheering him on to beat his record.

He has not complained once.

He has not noticed that we have not had pasta for dinner all week, or that we ran out of chocolate chip ice cream.

He is teaching me things about himself, about myself as a parent, about how a ten-year-old can commit to a goal, about how ten days of temper tantrums and hurt feelings can lead to a change of course, a new sense of responsibility and even (the reverse of what I feared for him) a tremendous leap in self-confidence. He is teaching me to hang in there with him, that he is strong.

He has a way to go, but I am so proud of my guy.

Quinoa

I finally tried Quinoa at a restaurant this afternoon. I ordered the Beefsteak and Quinoa Salad, assuming it was a traditional salad with a side of the popular grain. Cooking magazines and nutrition articles rave about it. People claim to love it.

So, I figured, “why not?”

Well, I will tell you why not. Yes, my lunch was quite good. Yes, I am impressed with myself that I ordered a salad. Very healthy of me. Go me!

But on either side of my very attractive Quinoa dish was a big plate of pasta in a delicious looking, creamy sauce and a grilled cheese with great looking French fries.

Quinoa, shinoa, biminoa.

I spent the entire lunch wishing that my healthy lunch would turn magically, without anyone noticing, into my Dad’s pasta or my son’s fries.

Quinoa sounds cool. It looks pretty on your plate. It has texture. You will fit in with the skinny moms’ club.

But order me up a big bowl of pasta or fries any day!