Yesterday was Mark’s birthday. My tummy is growling due to the kind of indulgence we haven’t seen around here for awhile. We went to The Works On Richmond for a celebratory dinner. We started with their trademark Tower O’Rings. I had the Thin Lizzie: a big burg with chipotle peppers and BBQ sauce. Oh, it was good.
Emma has started grade two. It’s been a completely non-eventful transition. I walked her to school this morning. She proudly showed me her new playground tricks. She hung upside down on the climber. Gravity pulled at her hair and her hoodie. Emma and her friend thought that was pretty funny.
Sarah’s first day is today. She’s in afternoon SK.
Now that school has started, I am reminded of a couple of my perennial annoyances:
1) My hatred of lunchmaking.
It’s not a big issue with Sarah. She’s not too choosy. I will be packing a lunch for her twice a week, as she eats at home the rest of the time.
Emma is another story. She’s a good fruit eater, so I don’t worry about her not eating the fruit I pack. She and I have talked about making a list of all the sandwiches she’ll eat. Here’s our current working list:
- ham sandwich, hold everything put the ham: multigrain bread, mayo, ham. She doesn’t like lettuce, cheese or anything else to dirty up her ham sandwich, so it’s just ham. I put extra ham on it, because I feel like she needs to compensate for lack of other fillings.
- Red pepper roll-up: flax-seed tortilla (here’s a tip, not only are they healthy, but they seem to stay more pliable than the other kinds) with cream cheese and chopped red peppers. Roll it all up, secure with toothpick.
- Hummus and pita. I make my own hummus (it’s sooo easy to make, and much cheaper than store-bought) and she gets it with some pita, carrots and cucumbers.
- bagel and cream cheese
- ?
She likes peanut butter, loves it, but our school is nut-free. So that eliminates peanut-butter, peanut butter and jam, and good ol’ peanut-butter and banana sandwiches.
Perhaps I should just stop beating myself up and accept the fact that these are the only sandwiches she’ll eat. I will try to rotate them despite my own feelings of nausea, and go crazy with the side dishes: fruit, cheeses, yogurts.
I do hate most commercially-packaged lunch snacks, and won’t succumb to the temptation no matter how much Emma would love some kind of gummy “fruit” doodad.
The packages scream things like “NOW WITH 10% FRUIT JUICE!” Yeah, that’s nothing to shout about. In fact, that does very little to persuade me to buy it.
It’s easy to get into a rut. Even as a grown-up. When I was working I had to brown-bag because there was nowhere close to eat. My lunch often consisted of exactly the same things: bagel and cream cheese, an apple, a yogurt. In fact, I got teased about the yogurt. Well, it was either that or run over to the diner across the street for burgers and poutine every day.
2) My other beginning-of-the-school-year annoyance: buying the girls their “indoor” shoes. This annoys me every year, not because we can’t afford it, but because I’m sad for the families who can’t. Good shoes don’t come cheap, and if they are cheap, they’re cheap for a reason.
Last year we bought Sarah a pair of Sears-brand runners and they lasted about a month, if that. My tactic is to lay out the cash for a good pair. They’ll last longer and save me the expense of buying a second pair.
I bought the girls each a very cool pair of Sketchers at the Pinecrest Globo. Sarah’s are brown with pink striping and Emma’s are blue and silver/white.
On today’s agenda: I have an article to write, and after school we’re going for a swim. It might be the last outdoor dip we take this year!
Sarah’s first-day-photos coming soon. :)
