Going Public: The Challenge of Lunch

Food is my love language.

The second we decided to put the kids in public school I started planning their lunches.

Seriously.

For me letting go of homeschooling begged the question, how well will they eat?  And I will tell you in all frankness, the hardest part of adjusting to public school was lunch time.  At home, lunch was our oasis.  We had finished the hard school work for the day. 7am to 12pm of meat. Scripture, literature, grammar, history, math, writing. To signal lunch I'd put on a beautiful audio book or tune them in to a video about science or art history and make something warm for them to eat.  They had at least an hour to relax and absorb information alongside nourishment.  For all the reasons reasonable and respectable, public school lunch is not relaxed.  Relaxed is the antonym for school lunch.

At each public school hundreds of children have to be corralled and fed as efficiently as possible, so they can 1--be not hungry and 2--get back to learning.  For my kids, that means 15 minutes to find a seat and eat.  They were not ready for that!  But they adjusted very quickly.  The stomach is the master of all things.

To give them the most time possible to eat, I attempt to pack their lunches everyday.  They buy when I don't have a stocked fridge, or we're just too tired, or they beg adorably enough for the pancakes being served for lunch.  But 90% of the time we pack.

90% of the time I'm racking my brain for ideas of food they'll willingly eat quickly and maybe a token to remind them they're loved.  This is how last year went:

I get our weekly groceries on Saturday or Sunday, early in the morning.  When I'm on top of things I'll chop and bag their fruits and veggies as soon as I've put everything away--five days' worth of snack and lunch. (Browning produce: dash of lemon juice in the bag.) Then Monday through Friday I simply throw the components into the bags and lunch packing ain't no thang.

Though this is the "best" way to do it, it is not always the most feasible.  My elementary kids get a snack in the morning and then lunch.  That's a lot of produce, y'all!  It takes precious hours I may not have to give on Saturday, but when I have to chop, bag, and pack the morning of, they often end up with less ideal options.

The main course is usually ham and cheese or PB&J. That gets old over 180 school days for both the creator and the consumer.  The creative solutions my kids will actually eat:

pasta salad w/ their favorite veggies,

 corndog muffins (cornbread recipe w/ chopped up franks mixed in),

 or leftover breakfast--their favorite.  Blueberry or poppyseed muffins are also great w/ a couple hard-boiled eggs.

Absolutely, by far, over and above, the greatest privilege we have in packing lunches: sending love notes.  This is how I show up for them in the middle of the day.  It's not everyday, every week, or every month.  It is as needed.  It may be a note of encouragement or it may be a joke to tell their lunch buddies.  Occasionally I'll write out my prayers for them on that day.  If a verse sticks out from our morning reading, I'll copy that onto their notes.  I pack whatever love message I think they'll be hungry for on that day.

Last year I often sent Li'l Bit reminders of her bravery and character strengths since she was facing the giants of fifth grade.  I encouraged her to lean into the Spirit when facing adversity.  For Gizmo I reminded him of his academic strengths, praised his kindness and generosity, or gave him a joke.  Ladybug is our easiest yet most sensitive, so I gave her a lot of simple, "I love you because you are you and you are more than enough" notes.  Lots of smiley faces and hearts for her. 

A White Girl's 9/11

9/11 was horrific. I knew not a single soul in New York. I lived in Arkansas, a sophomore in college.  I wasn't even a crier, and I wept for days. The despair.  The loss.

When the crying stopped I ended here:  What now? What the crap do we do now?

Strangest thing about the announcement I sent to 333 kids' families today: 9/11. On 9/11 we're going to do a PTO walk-and-talk. No "remembrance." No ceremony. Just gather, greet, smile, walk, and talk.
We're building community at our school. Or trying to. New England is chronically transitional. As much as I love the deep roots and loyalty of our town, there are precious families slipping through our fingers. Niños. Mothers. Papas. Aunts. Patriarchs and matriarchs unnoticed.
We white ones are comfortable. We can live here or there or anywhere and find acceptance somewhere. But our nextdoor neighbors who are beautifully all the shades of beige or brown or foreign-speaking, their every step is measured by the consequence of exposure to new faces. These new souls may not act so much like a soul but more like a wrecking ball because they are afraid. There is a protocol to follow when you are afraid. These protocols make us feel safe.
So tomorrow, we are tending to a silly, little PTO event. 
I don't know y'all. 
When I hear PTO I think white, middle class, and safe.  But tomorrow, 9/11, is not about that. Tomorrow is about community.  Tomorrow is about love heals, not time.  Time just numbs.
The face of our school community is not white. It is beige and brown and hazel-eyed and hungry and dappled and stunning.  It is a gorgeous, dappled face that exists in a peach crayon world.
I never liked the peach crayon. It was only good to mimic my skin tone, and at that it did a horrible job.
I want the dappling.
I want the diversity.
I want the hunger.
I want the sustenance of love and acceptance.
I want the pepper of five different languages in my ear.
I want the triumph of finally finding the one thing I can feed my kid's Islamic friend. I want my fellow mom who rises from the ashes of adversity daily to get her degree and work to put her babies through school all by herself. I want my daughter's friend who speaks fluent Italian. That is the life I want. These are the souls I want to love.
So tomorrow, on 9/11, we're going to do this simple, silly PTO event because I PRAY those souls and others like them know they are welcome to show up.

We want the dappling.

Body Image and Baby Girls

I know there are so many people who would say not to, but I do weigh myself from time to time. I avoid weighing myself when I'm feeling unhealthy or lethargic, so I hardly ever do it. ;) Believe it or not, I am not a glutton for punishment. I weigh myself when I'm making good choices and I'm curious where that puts me on My Own Health Scale. (Or when the nurse makes me do it, which is my current predicament.) *Keeping tabs on ones weight should only be an indicator of overall health and well-being. That is absolutely not true for many, and for those I would beg, take the scale analogy out of this post and insert what you are able to use as an objective measurement of health.*

If my girls walk by the bathroom and see my feet on the scale they inevitably want to weigh themselves. First things first: I don't say ANYTHING about my weight being high or low. (That is for my doctor to decide and I only have to see her once a year!) And I try not to let those thoughts pervade my brain. I tell them I'm curious to see what my healthy number is that day. Then when they hop on the scale, we read the number together and I say, “Wow! Look how strong you are!” I have to be careful with my girls. They are so slight a strong wind could blow them away. I have to watch what I say about that. In a skinny-obsessed culture, it is far too easy to be overly positive about being naturally thin--especially when they’re “just kids.” What they hear now, what they observe now forms the grid through which they will view their future world, their future selves. They don't need to hear, "Oh! You're so skinny!" or, "You'll never have a weight problem--look how tiny you are!" or, worse yet, "I wish I had your DNA." 

They need to know they are strong and healthy. They need to remember that when their bodies are well fed, well rested, and playing hard they are the lucky ones. Some bodies don't work the way they are meant to. Some mouths never get the food they need. Somebody every second is hurting because their body cannot thrive. Their lips long so much for the simple blessing of eating, nourishing, and flourishing that they cannot curve into a smile. My girls need to know what a gift their body is. To me and to them.

You'd think it would be the other way around, but the best thing that ever happened to my own body image was having kids. Through the inflation and deflation of my own body for the sake of theirs, I have learned to cherish this marked shell. I learned as the need arose to teach them. I realized that the self-battering I have dealt myself since I was a child is not what I want to pass on to my girls. I want to give them the very best chance to start this thing out on the right foot. But in order to teach them how to be thankful for their bodies I first have to be thankful for mine. Do what I say, not as I do? We all know that doesn't work. If I want them to live with the freedom of loving their bodies, I have to love my own. Possibly even more critical than the words I say to them are the words they hear me saying to myself. They do not need to hear me say things like, "I shouldn't eat that--I'm already so bloated." or, "I feel fat." or, "I'm gaining so much weight." Even if I'm saying those things to other adults and not directly to them, they hear me. They hear everything I say. (Homework and chore time not a good reference point. They're PRETENDING not to hear the words that are coming out of my mouth! Crazy making.)

My body is a gift. It is a gift to my kids because it grew and fed them, and now it nurtures them. It is a gift to my husband because well, frankly we all know why! It is a gift to my friends because it can do the work of loving them. It is a gift to myself because--holy crap, there are so many reasons! All of the above and then some! It lets me go to the gym for solitude; it lets me hike with my hooligans; it lets me bake and create; it lets me rest. Ah, sweet rest. My favorite part.

Yes, it's given me some rough seasons. It has been violated and scarred and remembers every detail. My brain is bent toward depression and migraines, which brings this Mama Train to a screeching halt. For whatever reason, it didn't carry our fourth baby past the first trimester. It completely refused to cooperate with life while Sweet Pea grew to her astounding 10 lbs. 9 oz. And yes, more to our starting point, it jumps at every opportunity to swell up in the places I always examined *past tense* with the greatest scrutiny because they didn't look at all like the girls in Seventeen. (Really? Seventeen every single month, but National Geographic Kids has to charge 50% more for only 10 issues? Our culture is so opposite of what I'd hoped.) What I'm getting at is, when I say my body is a gift, I'm not saying it is without troubles. But it works. It lets me do the work. It gets fed. It sleeps safely. It breathes. It is a gift.

So when my girls jump on the scale, excited to see their growing number I rejoice with them. And when I sheepishly step on the scale at my midwife's office, I remind myself to again rejoice. And next March when I have to face digits at my postpartum visit, I will set a reminder to read this post first. I will remember that my body is amazing. Even if it goes kaput on me...at this point? Look what it has already given me!