School started this week. I'd been giving Henry little heads-up warnings about it -- "Henry, in two more days you'll start school!" -- but until he saw that yellow bus pull up outside our house Tuesday morning, I don't think he truly got it. He looked rather stunned. Still, he got on the amazingly-on-time bus and headed off. And did great.
He's in first grade this year, so it's the first year of "big school." He has gym class, music, and art. There are only 3.5 other official "special needs" kids in his school (the .5 is a half-time kindergartner). Small caseload for the special needs team, except for the speech therapist who tells me her caseload (which she shares with a half-time therapist) is 56. That is INSANE.
So I'm looking around at other mom-blogs out there and I notice that moms are talking about packing nutritious lunches, and quick things to pull together in the morning, and things to stock up on -- etc. And I think, "Hey, wait a minute -- I signed my kid up for the lunch program! Am I doing it wrong?" Then I think: wait.
Let's say it takes me fifteen minutes to pack the lunch in the morning (it would take less, but I'm adding in shopping and planning to keep things simple). School lunch costs $2. Do I really want to pay myself $8 an hour to stress out over yet another thing to add to our morning routine? And I know that at least once a week, that lunch would be on the counter whilst Henry was out the door.
Despite this very fine rationale I'm still feeling a bit sub-par, mom-wise. Then I get an email from HS, Henry's lead spec ed teacher. "He loves having lunch with the other kids...today he ate green beans." He ate GREEN BEANS? He's never consented to green beans at home.
Ah, the sweet balm of vindication.
PS: The title of this post refers to a common item on the school lunch menu of my junior high. I can only guess that there was a grassroots movement, spearheaded by the PTA, to remove the dry, mealy apples from the school larders and replace them with something befitting the finer palates of their children. Regarding said apples, I cannot honestly attest to their tartness, nor can I attest to their juicyness, since I always got the pizza.
Not "Sweet Juicy Apples"? Was that perhaps back in the day of Sour Apple bubble gum?
Posted by: Ms Sparrow | September 11, 2009 at 03:44 PM