"Are we punishing her by withholding food?"

Right off the bat, I will give Ching credit.  Last night, he told me that he would get up first and make the lunches.  I could either sleep a little later or do as I wish.  While I would like to think that I slept later, really I just lay there wide awake thinking that I should be making the lunches.  As Ching got up to do his new tasks, I got in the shower.  Since it was a non-wash hair day, I was pretty quick and was surprised to see that he was not only done with the lunches but was practically done dressing Rachel.  I tried to push the skepticism down because his deed was good but I was curious about what was in their lunch that took next to no time at all.

So I quietly go into the kitchen to check his results.  First of all, I never told you the good news about Laurel.  She has started to get hot lunch at school so now I just pack her a snack.  But I don't see a snack ready to go for Laurel.  So I will focus on Rachel.  As I look into Rachel's lunch, my first thought/question is, "Are we punishing her by withholding food?"

When packing lunches, I have come to realize that there is very little real food.  The lunchboxes are just filled with packages of stuff.  The most popular stuff are things that don't require utensils and the packaging can just be squeezed and whatever is squirted right into their mouths.  Yogurt is a standard for this and now applesauce has followed suit.  I can't remember the last time I saw my kids using a spoon when eating yogurt--it's either in a crush cup, tub or smoothie bottle.  Ching did put the yogurt and the applesauce in the box but that's it.  I always find that four packaged things give Rachel enough choices without making me look super lazy.  I usually put in a small bag of Booty and a bar--either granola or Nutri-Grain.

There were two fresh fruit choices but I was perplexed at how few berries her gave her.  I didn't think the Wangs were rationing fruit.  Usually since raspberries and blueberries are small, I put them together.  They were not and they were so few, just rolling around in this small container, still with random stems.  It really just looked sad.  I mean, when was the last time he changed a poop?  Every poop is just a testament that Rachel jams handfuls of berries in her mouth.  So I combined those berries and cut up some strawberries too.

The best part was the pasta with tomato sauce.  It was a leftover from the night before and Ching just took the container out of the fridge and tossed it in the lunchbox.  I told him that the pasta needed to be heated and then put in a thermos container to stay warm.  He thought that the school heats dishes up for the kids.  (If each of the nine kids brought containers with post it's saying, "please heat", lunch would take a very long time.)  In Rachel's class, each kid opens their lunch box to look at their choices---there is no prep by the teachers.  When I picture Rachel opening her lunchbox, I think of her as this burly sweaty construction worker ready to hunker down on something substantial.  So, sad looking blueberries and cold pasta is not going to do the trick.

But not a problem, it's a learning process.  Something he can learn well ahead of my women's weekend in August.

I did come to learn that Laurel had no snack ready---but I used it again, as an opportunity to show him that Laurel gets a fruit choice and a sweet choice with a juice box.

I did have to wonder what their lunches looked like prior to this when I was out of town for work.  I am assuming that Rachel just grabbed what she wanted from another kid like any other day.