One Two One Two, This is Just a Test

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Yesterday morning was fun sneaky times at Casa del Asshole. Franny’s teacher is strongly encouraging parents to let kids make their own lunches for school, and has asked parents to make this easier for them by making sure they have supplies and time to do so. It’s all part of the independence thing at their school, which I am all for.

On Sundays I have her sit down and write up a balanced menu for the week, which is a list of things she can pack, so she won’t stand in front of the fridge blankly. I look over the list and we talk about protein and fruits and all that jazz.

So in the morning I watched her get dressed, and eat the oatmeal I made. She had a ton of time and screwed around by playing in her room. I was standing in the kitchen and watched her look at her lunch bag and then remember, and then deliberately walk away from it. She read to her sister and fooled around some more. She probably pissed away about forty minutes. I said nothing.

Then it was time to get shoes on and get out the door for our short walk to school. We got off our property and halfway down the block with Strudel. Franny’s hands were noticeably empty, and there was a weird dramatic tension.

“OH NO!” Franny exclaimed. “I forgot my lunch, MOM!”

“Oh no. I guess you won’t have lunch today. That’s too bad,” I said sincerely.

She stopped in her tracks and gave me a confused look, because this is the part where I was supposed to go, “OH DEAR POOR BABY, LET MUMMY RUN HOME AND FIX EVERYTHING.” But I didn’t.

“What am I going to do?” she wailed, and began crying.

“Well, your teacher says that if you forget your lunch, parents are not supposed to bail you out. It’s your responsibility to remember lunch now.”

She cried softly all the way to school, and then pulled it together as she walked in the door. She froze when she entered, and I saw her classmates greet her. I only saw the back of her, but she had weird body language, like on TV when the main character is dreaming she’s forgotten her pants. BUSTED.

“Have a good day!” I said.

After school, she looked completely out of gas. I talked to her teacher really quickly and asked her how it came out. She said they talked about the importance of not forgetting, and that she didn’t see Franny eat anything all day. She came home and ate a bunch of snacks, and told me that someone slipped her an apple at one point.

This morning, before I came downstairs, the lunch bag was already packed and on the counter. You can’t outsneak the Sneaky Queen. At least not at six.

11 thoughts on “One Two One Two, This is Just a Test”

  1. That is AWESOME. Bravo to you and the school for a lesson in resposibility she’ll remember far longer than any nagging on your part.

  2. This sort of reminds me of when my mother taught me a lesson about pet-ownership at age 10. She got sick of constantly reminding me to feed my parakeet and sat me down and told me that the parakeet was mine and that it was my responsibility to feed it and water it and she wouldn’t be reminding me any more.

    A month later, the parakeet was dead with an empty water bottle and no food.

    That there is some serious tough love. I learned the lesson, but sadly, so did that bird. My only consolation, to this day, is that it was very old.

    But still…

  4. Good for you. My kid loves making her own lunch, but I am a control freak and rarely let her. She has to remember to put it in her bag in the morning, though, and the one time she forgot, the lunch lady gave her a HAM sandwich. For a vegetarian, this was clearly a horrifyingly memorable experience.

  5. I could absolutely see the scene with her going into class realizing there would be no lunch and everyone would know that she dropped the ball (or bag, as the case may be).

  6. I am a control freak too, so once I have her make her menu and approve it, I have to seriously NOT WATCH her make lunch in the morning. But she’s got a good basis in nutrition now, so I know she’s doing well.

  8. That might be the kind of lesson she olny needs to learn once to remember…

    (or she could be like me and forget about eating until she’s practically starving to death, but let’s just hope that isn’t the case.)

  9. Hmm my mum used to make me vegemite sandwiches everyday. Now I know you guys aren’t big on vegemite, its good on toast with cheese, but every single day 5 days a week got a little tiresome. Especially since all the other kids got filled rolls.

    Did I learn the lesson to make my own food? I did not. I just used to eat my friends food, she always had enough money to buy from the cafeteria.

    To this day, I still can’t cook anything. It’s sorta embarrasing :)

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