I *knew* lunch would be a problem
I was preparing myself to write a political post. Not one about the current bruhaha, just one about a political topic near and dear to my heart, but now it must wait. Right now, there is a minor school adjustment crisis that is taking up my brain space.
I freaking KNEW lunch was going to cause problems.
Everything had been going well for M in kindergarten. She is enthusiastic to go there. She seems to be having fun. She seems to like the work and the playtime. She hasn’t complained about much of anything, until tonight.
Earlier in the day, I asked her about school and the response was mostly good stuff. I probed. I asked questions about who she plays with. I asked about the routine. Everything seemed fine.
Then tonight at dinner, I mentioned she didn’t eat all her rice for lunch. Now, maybe that isn’t a big deal for other kids, but M loves rice. She loves it so much she would eat herself sick on it if I let her. Today, she only picked at it.
When I mentioned the rice, M suddenly got all teary.
“I didn’t have time to eat it! All the other kids ate their lunch faster and went to recess. I was ALL ALONE at the table! Only big kids were left, so I didn’t eat it!” she said as big fat tears ran down her face.
“Don’t pack me such a big lunch next time Mama! I want to go to recess. I NEVER EVER want to be last again.” she cried with very pathetic, heartbreaking sobs.
I tried to tell her she could just eat as much as she wanted and could leave the rest, but it seems she really wanted to eat the rice but she didn’t want to sit alone. I think part of the problem was that I packed her carrots and spinach with dip, which takes a long time. She also has to stand in line to buy milk, so that took some time too.
It is a silly thing to be upset about, but I know exactly how she feels. I hate the conspicuous feeling of eating alone. I remember how much it sucks to be left behind when your friends are out having fun.
I promised to pack a faster lunch the next time. Applesauce, bananas, etc. We will try some foods that require little chewing. Maybe I will send a drink in her bag.
I also think this is probably a tiny crack in her little tough, happy-go-lucky facade. A new school is hard. Making new friends is scary. Being one of the youngest, newest kids is no picnic.
I know it was silly, but my heart broke for her when I saw those big tears. Maybe I need to try to arrange some playdates with her old friends, so she can have something familiar. And maybe we should try to set up some playdates with the new schoolmates too.
She is just so much like me sometimes, I feel like I am reliving the more stressful parts of my own childhood. She seems so brave on the outside, but deep down she doesn’t want to stick out. She wants to have friends. She pretends things that bother her don’t.
She is a good kid. Everything will be ok, but for a while, she might eat a lot of applesauce and grapes for lunch.
(And don’t get me started on the little kid who told her that blue cheese dressing is bad for her. I felt like I wanted to bop that kid in the head when she told me that.)
September 4th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Speaking as somebody who was sent to school with all sorts of weird whole grain, organic health food for lunch, in an era and community where white bread and Hostess snacks were a daily norm for most of my classmates . . . yeah, lunch can be hard. The worst part of it was, even as early as seven and eight years old I knew Mum sent me healthy foods for lunch because she loved me, and so for years I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her food choices were getting me mercilessly picked on; I felt like I needed to protect her from experiencing the same rejection I faced at school every day.
When/if my kids come along, they are getting sandwiches and carrot sticks and a juice box from kindergarten until they can pack their lunches themselves! And my mother, who finally did find out (after I graduated) how I was teased for the contents of my lunches, is behind me on that 110%
M is a very, very lucky little girl to have a mum who is not willing to take her every smile at face value.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Those first few weeks in a new school are tough. I remember last year, when two weeks in, my dotter cried on my lap because no-one played with her at recess. The good thing was that a few weeks later, those stresses had passed; I hope the same with M!
September 4th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Ah! I was thinking of you today - I was in a bookstore and saw Bento Box in the Heartland, and was wondering how M and her lunches were getting on. Sorry to hear about the drama.
I know how M feels - I am a slow eater and I was always left behind at lunch because it took me too long to eat. To some extent that may not be able to be helped, and maybe she’ll just have to go to school with a smaller lunch so she can keep up. Poor sweetie.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:45 am
I’m right there with ya. My daughter, like yours, has an easy time making friends. Her first week of kinder went great - she even came home the first day begging to go back the next.
But this morning, she mentioned her “small” eyes - for the 2nd time in as many days. When I probed, I found out that her new friends keep asking (while on the playground) why her eyes are so small. My heart sank. I mean, I knew it was coming, I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. Dammit.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Poor M. I sat alone at lunch, too.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:33 am
For the record, she didn’t actually sit alone. She was just the last one left at the table.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:01 am
ahhhhh, poor M!! I hope she wasn’t too hungry the rest of the day!! I think it’s a great idea to send “quicker” foods. I know at Austin’s school they all RACE through lunch to get to the playground, they make them sit there for a certain amount of time, but when the bell rings to say they can go play, they all want to. Regarding the drink. Can you just pack her a little bottle of milk? This year I just started sending a reusable water bottle and Austin is more happy with that then juice bags…
September 4th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Poor baby! I feel for her. Can it be all finger food? What about onigiri (rice balls) that can be snarfed down faster than a sandwich? Carrot sticks? Grapes? And milk in a thermos.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:15 am
What is wrong with a sandwich, some fruit, and a couple of cookies? WHY do you have to make such a huge deal over lunch. She can have rice for dinner. Or make riceballs. But really, you’re overthinking this.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I gave her the lunch she requested. She wanted rice, carrots/spinach & dip, an apple and a hardboiled egg. How is that overthinking? She loves rice. She doesn’t like sandwiches. I think she spent too much time enjoying her dipping so she didn’t get to eat her rice.
Seriously, can’t I feel bad that my kid was sad without this becoming some kind of personal attack? You don’t want to read about my lunch issues, then don’t read.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I worried that my Kindergartener would not be able to get her applesauce open by herself… so we practiced… ALOT.
How’s THAT for over thinking??!!??
I’m right there with you!
September 4th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Do what SHE wants. Between the two of you, it will work out. Mine is slow eater also and hates being left alone. So, she just leaves things and that is fine with me. What will be will be.
We had the tears at being the last to change for PE! So now we have to plan outfits for those days that are super fast to get on and off!
If it isn’t one thing, its another!
September 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
As someone who just made my daughter soup and a lettuce salad for lunch (2nd grade) at her request, I feel for you. I love love love the days she’ll take hot lunch. Even if I think our school district uses a crappy corporation to make the hot lunches. They have name brand Fritos and Chef Boy R Dee…but I hate making cold lunch more than I love good food.
On the plus side, I haven’t had to worry too much about lunch oddities, she just doesn’t seem to care about what other people think of her lunch. Except for candy/sweets;/treats–1 only. More than that and people talk. (I resist asking who) And her school dismisses all of the kids at one time, so no “last one to the playground” problem. Of course, the one dismissal means she does complain she doesn’t enough time to eat on the days when she picks wilder concoctions.
And I have to say the Bento Box appeals to me. I didn’t use to hate making day care lunches because it all had to be individually wrapped and marked.
And my mom laughs at me and my hatred…I had PBJ every day for about 12 years. I was simple to the point of making her crazy.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
It isn’t silly. You are a good parent for taking it seriously.
We packed good lunches for our pre k twins the first week, but they wanted to try the mediocre, fattening school lunches, so we let them. I have a bit of satisfaction that Sophie picked a salad over a taco in the lunch line yesterday.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Pack her a drink and that will eliminate a lot of the standing in line time! You can buy reusable rubbermaid drink boxes for this. They are so easy and can be tossed in the dishwasher in the evening.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Our school as a time policy, as in there are 20 min for lunch and evenif you wolf down your baloney (kosher!) sandwich in 3 min, you have to sit there and wait for everyone else to be done before you go outside. This helps tremenously with a slow poke like my Dumpling.
For once though, we are having the opposite effect with lunch. After 3 years of NOT eating at school, the new Bento concept (I use the term loosely, it’s all typical Jewish lunch fare, but in a Bento presentation) is a hit with my kid. And the other kids too! It’s only been 5 days, and already every kid at her table (5) has asked their mom for a cool lunch like Dumpling. 2 of those moms have now gone and bought a Bento Box and are trying it out. Sorry to hog your comments, but I know you understand the tremendous amout of pride this causes me: my kid is eating AND other kids wanna do something she’s doing….
As for M, send her the drink (if you really want to send milk you can put it in a thermos with and ice pack around it, it will be fine) so she gets the extra time, and give her a week to get used to it. She’ll cut down on the dipping time if she wants to go play. She’s an incredibly smart cookie, she’ll figure it out quickly.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Poor little M. I know exactly how that emotional kick in the gut on behalf of your little one feels. That’s the burden of being mom. OTOH, I’m seething with envy that your kid actually asks for spinach and eggs.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I think our school requires everyone to wait. How can it be good for kids to wolf down lunches and then run off to play?
Poor M. Getting Soleil to eat ANYTHING is a challenge, not to mention lunch. We do low stress lunch as much as possible
September 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Poor M! It is hard to start a new school…and it would certainly be hard to have your rice calling out to you but want to catch up to the other kids at the same time! You’re not at all overthinking this, btw. The fact that you anticipated and wrote about it before it even happened shows you really have your finger on the pulse of what she might experience.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Every single time any of my kids has a problem at school that reminds me of a problem I had at school, it is ten times harder to handle. I get all reactive, and my fierce mama-bear instinct is doubled — I’ve been there, I know the pain.
That seems to be common to our generation of parents, too. You only have to read a few homeschooler blogs to see how alive the pains of school were in that group of folks, too.
Anyway, you have my sympathies. I’m just relieved that this lunch problem is not quite the lunch problem you anticipated — that would suck even worse, because the solution might not be as straight-forward.
My kids were the same way with lunches — they would only eat until the other kids were done, and then they’d stop eating so they, too, could go outside. Plus, there’s just a more limited amount of time — the child who lingers over a meal is probably going to leave the table hungry. So I think your plan to offer faster-to-eat foods is brilliant, and right on point. I mean, beyond everything else, you want to make sure that M doesn’t spend the afternoon hungry, because it will bring out the cranks in the worst way.
I get the distinct impression that my slow-eater children are not getting as much time in the cafeteria at their new school as at their old one. They come home ravenous, and eat snacks (triscuits and cheese, fruit, chopped veggies) continuously until dinner time.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Oh, btw, in the two years of school so far, the hardest weeks were weeks 3 and 4. The routine isn’t new anymore, the teachers are still doing preliminary assessments and stuff (figuring out who goes in which reading and math groups, mostly) so the actual work of school isn’t yet in full bloom, and everyone is worn out from all the new stuff (classmates, teachers, materials to an early extent). Not that weeks 1 and 2 don’t have their subterranean adjustments, but 3 and 4 are when it all bubbled up.
I’m reminding myself as much as sharing the story, here!
September 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Can you get an icepack (I got a flat one with Hello Kitty on it at Target) - that you can put a juice box or a drink (even boxed milk or boxed soy milk) in her lunch box and she wouldn’t have to waste time waiting in line for milk. (You could also send a yogurt if you are worried about her getting some dairy, and the ice pack would keep that cold as well.) Also, I suspect the Apple took a long time to eat - it takes my kids a long time to eat a whole apple - you could preslice it for her and put lemon juice on it, or you could get some of those “healthy harvest” apple sauces. Did you cut up the hardboiled egg for her?
Lunch is hard. You don’t want your kid to be the odd-one out, I know.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I don’t understand why the other kids get to run off to recess because they woofed down their lunch faster. When I went to school we had a specific amount of time in the lunchroom and no leaving until that time was up.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
AmFam - do you like her teacher? Would you be comfortable asking about the school’s lunch/recess procedure? Our K kids don’t stay for lunch, but I know when I was teaching first grade, if we got to the lunchroom even a little late the kids would be at the end of the lunch line and by the time they’d bought their milk or lunch there wouldn’t be much time left for eating. Then some of them (the ones who couldn’t wolf down their food) would not finish before being sent out. It really concerned me as the teacher. The first few days are completely crazy, and I hope for Ms sake that some of the timing problems are because her class got down late or the lunch line was too long and are things that will resolve as the kids get used to routines. Maybe there’s a “milk only” express line or something that she doesn’t know about because she’s a kindergartener. If you feel comfortable with her teacher, I would talk about it with her, because maybe there’s something she could do that would help, including having a chat with the class about being a good friend, and waiting for others to finish. Poor little M.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Horizion makes a boxed milk that doesn’t need to be chilled (I don’t want to know why!).
You could tuck in an ice pack to help get it cold, but it won’t go bad if it gets warm.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:49 am
I didn’t read the other comments, so someone may have already said this. I’m a first and 2nd grade teacher, just returning to work. A few years ago we had a parent bring to our attentention that her child wasn’t eating b/c the kids could get up when they were finsihed and her child didn’t want to eat alone. We changed our lunch policy so that the kids have to remain seated for 20 mins and then can choose to get up or keep eating for 10 more mins. This ended up helping a lot of kids. Just thought I’d mention it.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Why not put her whole lunch in a blender and call it a smoothie?
Something seems off about the other kids getting to leave at different times. Were these her imaginary friends?
http://www.AnUrbanStory.com
September 6th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Awww, poor M! I’m pretty sure our school is an “everyone goes to recess at the same time” school, thank goodness.
We went back for a visit to preschool this afternoon. A went to private preschool, at a school that continues through 12th grade, so many of her classmates continued on to K there. The past 3 weeks of K have been a litany of “Why couldn’t I stay at [old school]? I miss [teachers from old school]!” After the visit today, I’m pretty sure that what she misses is being a preschooler, and that she’d be having the same issues there as she’s having here. Kindergarten is hard.
I second the recommendation for the Horizon UHT single-serves. Pull one out of the freezer at night, and the next morning it’s still frozen enough to keep the lunchbox cold, but not so much that it’s frozen at lunchtime.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:57 am
I’m sorry about this, and I’m glad you have a plan in place. Several commenters also added good suggestions — packing a drink is key, I think, you should try it.
You know, I didn’t share this earlier, but Kelvin has been taking “different” lunches to school too — he mostly takes one glass dish of food (rice and beans, lentils, pasta — the food can be microwaved) because we still follow the Brazilian custom of having lunch be our main meal. He complained a few times, and the three times in all of last year when I bought the organic and food coloring free equivalent of the go-gurt, he was in HEAVEN! He kissed me multiple times, he was so thrilled that he was going to have something similar to what his classmates eat! I got to observe their lunches once a week when I went to teach a piano class, so I knew that generally only him and another boy had “food” and the other kids had more typical lunches. This year it’s not that different, but it got a little worse.
6 of the 13 kids in his school left and now there are 9 new kids, totaling 16 and these new students mostly bring sandwiches, chips and other stuff, some of it prepackaged. On Wednesday was my first day as a teacher there, so I packed a lunch for the three of us (Linton comes with me too), brown rice and veggie meat stroganoff — one of Kelvin’s “favoritest foods.” And I brought along plastic plates for him and Linton to eat their share. As everyone was opening their sandwich bags, I brought his plate and his reaction was quite extreme — “I’m not going to eat that mom!” (the main problem was the ugly plate, he’s used to the container, I know). He relented and even had seconds, but yesterday Linton, the 4 year old, asked me when we’re going to have sandwiches in school.
Yeah, it’s amazing how early they pick up on the peer pressure. So, I’m plan to have Fridays as “sandwich day” and bring food Mondays and Wednesdays… Even in a small group of 16 kids, I don’t want my boys to be completely singled out. I understand. (and the little Asian boy who brings food every time — he’s allergic to eggs and dairy too — is completely unfazed, I like that in him!).
Sorry for the huge comment. It’s just that I probably won’t get to blog about this, you know…
September 6th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Maybe you could speak to her teacher about their lunchtime policy. I can’t see any good in having a lunchtime structure that lets kids wolf down their food as fast as they can so they’d have more play time. Perhaps you could pack M juice or milk in those little tetra pack juice boxes. They don’t go bad if they warm to room temperature and you can always stick an ice pack with it. As for food maybe something like mini pies and cut fruit. This way she can eat quickly and still have a decent lunch in her tummy.
M is really lucky to have a mom who cares about how well she adjusts to school socially. =D
September 7th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Stumbled onto your blog, and am glad I did! Have dipped into the archives, and will dip further soon, I hope.
I know this is a little random, but please don’t hesitate to contact me at carolie at wordmagix dot com if I can send you some bento supplies or a couple of cute bento boxes. My nieces are THE most popular kids at lunch now, because I sent them various bento from Japan. They’re the coolest kids in the lunch room!
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:33 am
So I don’t comment forever and then I’m snarky. Go figure.
But I can’t help smiling about someone whose blog name is “outtamymindwithworry” and whose blog is called “What was I thinking?” accusing you of overthinking!
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 am
p.s. As the diabetic kid whose mom cut her (brand x) fruit roll ups in half - LUNCH MATTERS.