For Day 1 of school, Savvy was packed a delicious, nutritious lunch and “snack.”
At the parent orientation, the school administrators were very specific that they wanted nutritious snacks and lunches and not candy bars and junk. Fair enough. Although why does a kid need a snack 2 hours after eating breakfast and an hour before eating lunch? I think I just figured out our nation’s childhood obesity problem…
So, lunch Day 1 was a ham sandwich, grapes, a small packet of goldfish crackers, and a small little Tupperware of carrots.
This was, of course, all prepped and ready to go at 5am on the first day of school, which starts at 9am.
I’m a planner…
She goes off, she comes home; a great first day at school. Victory! Except…
She didn’t eat the carrots.
You are not surprised at this. I am not surprised at this, either.
But it was Day 1 and there was enough to deal with.
Day 2, same lunch but with a cheese sandwich. (And a smaller size snack, just to be on the safe side. Fewer goldfish.)
Didn’t eat the carrots.
Now, I was willing to let it go on Day 1 due to Day 1 jitters (I’m not saying whose) and I didn’t expect her teacher to force her to eat carrots on Day 1, either.
But on Day 2, I will admit I was a little miffed.
So I asked her: “Sweetie, why did you not eat your carrots?”
And I know why. It’s because they are carrots, and nobody eats carrots at school. Carrots are kind of yucky anyway, you know, in the grand scheme of things. I have to fuss at her to get her to eat them at home. A lot.
She sensed the urgency in my voice when I put the question to her, though, I’m sure.
But I waited very patiently for her answer to why she did not, on Day 2, eat her carrots at lunch at school.
She paused, and thought about it for a moment, and said:
“But, daddy, the other stuff in my lunchbox was so yummy!”
Okay, I caved after that.
She’s a shrewd one.
We’ll see how I do on Day 3.