The first school lunch

Tomorrow is the big day and I think I’m just as excited as River is. I had him help me to prepare his lunch today so that it would be familiar to him when he opened his lunchbox for the first time. I splurged on this $40 lunch box. It took some work to convince Mark and it’s an unusual purchase for me. But I thought that it could last for years, I liked that was set up to make it easy to carry homemade, versus packaged food, and I wanted him to have a little something that might make him feel special.

His first meal is going to be lasagna with prosciutto and two pieces of broccoli, yogurt, raisins, an apple and three mini rice cakes. When I showed it to Mark, he reminded me how I said I wasn’t the type to make fancy lunches. With the exception of the lasagna, which I made last week and froze, nothing else took any work. I just pulled a couple of things out of the fridge and the pantry and stuck them in the box, then filled the water bottle.

There is a small part of me that wants him to feel loved and believes that having a nice lunch will give him that feeling. Mark didn’t think so.

“Does papa love you River?” Mark asked him.

“Yes, and mama does too,” he said.

So papa still receives love without any involvement in lunch. He is correct. But I still remember the lunches I carried to elementary school, that were prepared by my mom. I recall a slice of white bread, a slice of processed American cheese, a pickle, and apple and perhaps an Oreo or two. I think there was some milk in a thermos that would sometimes leak, for I remember milk and/or pickle juice occasionally contaminating the other items. I remember the school lunch seeming delicious in comparison and I felt it was quite a luxury when I got to buy it.

Sometimes I would eat the bulk of my packed lunch on my way to school and wind up with not much left for lunchtime. It wasn’t a lunch that made me feel loved. It was usually the same, it didn’t involve much preparation, I wanted more to eat, and I was envious of the kids who were sent to school with big fat sandwiches, jelly beans or other treats.

Since I don’t plan to send River with a lot of treats, I hope that a cool box and a meal he’s excited about will make him feel OK when he sees other kids with packages of Fritos or lunchables.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be up early, I’ll make oatmeal with raisins and milk, then we will set off to walk to the first day of “school.” My little baby is moving out into the bigger world.

I fail at making cool lunches before I even begin

I follow a couple of food blogs and I love opening my reader and looking at the daily photos. If it looks delicious, and something I’d be likely to make, I star it to try for later. This is an act of faith on my part, since I generally prefer to see a large number of five star reviews before I attempt a new recipe. But for certain bloggers, with really great pictures, I trust them.

This blog, Another Lunch, also has amazing pictures. The blogger’s children have the happiest, healthiest, funniest, most delicious looking lunches ever. But instead of feeling inspired, I feel inadequate. There is no way I am going to cut every ounce of River’s food into a cool shape, such as an angel, a bunny, a mouse or a monster.

It’s even less likely that I would ever take the time to affix edible faces onto each of these creatures. Or purchase and maintain the variety of food items necessary to have a selection of six or so different items every day.

Why?
1. I’d have to go purchase special food prep items to do these things, and I can’t see spending the money.

2. It seems like the kind of thing where once you do it once, or a few times, regular food won’t seem the same. I’d be stuck in a rut of obligation to keep it up.

3. I don’t have the time to do this. Or as the time-management book 168 Hours says instead, “It’s not a priority.” In the extra 20 minutes minimum it would take me to beautify a lunch in this way, I could have 20 minutes of sleep, I could read a chapter in a novel, I could take a walk with River, I could cook something that the whole family would enjoy.

This is not meant as a criticism of people who make these lunches. Wow, they are beautiful and I’m in awe. Their kids are lucky. But man, I really hope no one in River’s preschool comes to class with a lunch like this. It’s one of those things that if he doesn’t know it exists, he won’t miss it. He’ll have a happy life, and I’ll have more time.

Letting in the world

We’ve made the decision to enroll River in a daycare/preschool program one morning a week starting this fall. This is the facility that is really cheap, but probably not great quality. My goals for his time there are just to have some time with other kids, to have something of his own before the sibling arrives, and hopefully to make some friends who speak Spanish.

Nevertheless, I’m starting to think about all kinds of issues that make me realize what the larger issue is – letting in other people to influence my child. Truthfully, I’m not very concerned about the adults. Even if the care is not great, I don’t think one morning a week of substandard care is going to have a huge impact on him. I’ve been very free about leaving him with a variety of adults throughout his life.

I am, however, more concerned about the kids. I think that at this stage in his life, what other kids do can have a big impact on him. I also realize that you can control a lot of variables in the selection of a care facility, but you can’t find a class that is guaranteed to have sweet, well-behaved kids.

Mark tends to want River to have the top educational opportunities. But I don't see a correlation between expensive care and great kids, especially at this age. We recently had a toddler over to play who came from very highly educated and privileged parents. Yet he was a terror. He went around the house systematically breaking River’s toys (River himself has never intentionally broken a toy), and had at least three major tantrums in an hour. Basically, he is not the type of child I would want River to be spending time with because I didn’t see much in the way of positive examples from him.

I know kids are different, some boys are more aggressive, and that may even out in time. But I don’t want my child learning from that kind of example. Nor do I think there is much benefit at this age of putting River in the path of difficult children so he can learn to sort out social difficulties. I’d rather he be in a safe, loving and nurturing environment, which is what he has outside of a group setting.

The reason we picked this place in particular is due to the high percentage of Hispanic children. I worried that putting him in a predominantly English-language environment would make him feel ostracized for his Spanish. I wasn’t willing to run the risk of that kind of peer influence.

I have no idea what the other kids in his two-year old class will be like. On the day we visited, the kids seemed fine. But what if there is a biter? What if there is a bully? What if low hygienic standards result in him getting sick (he has never had more than a cold or flu to date), just as I’m in my third trimester or we have a newborn in the house?

And what about lunchtime? I’ve heard at the more expensive places around us, there is huge pressure for parents to provide fancy, organic lunches. This place caters to low-income kids, so I think we’ll be spared that pressure. But are the kids going to be coming with bags of chips and cookies and candy?

I visited the a zoo recently and saw hordes of kids having lunch during their school trips. I was appalled by the lunches, which were exactly along the lines of what Jamie Oliver rails against – juice boxes, bags of chips, Cheetos, lollypops, lunchables. There were lots of sandwiches and a few baby carrots. Otherwise, huge amounts of junk.

I’m nervous that River will feel denied if other kids have this junk and he doesn’t. I’m worried about kids mocking things he eats (like kale chips) and thereby causing him to reject them. Already, I don’t think I’d pack him kale chips as I wouldn’t want to run that risk. I’m nervous about super-picky kids making their preferences known and influencing River.

All this is making me wonder if I should even let him eat lunch there, or take him out before lunch time. I also wonder if I’m being super anal. A friend whose child goes to a center three days a week said she thinks it would influence him if he were there every day. But she doesn’t think one day a week will do much.

So perhaps, I just need to sit back and let society influence him once a week. I need to let him venture out into his own peer group and make some judgments for himself. But it’s not easy, especially knowing the intense powers that peers can wield over the young. I do feel an incentive to direct him towards peers I think will be a good influence on him.