Every New Years, we make resolutions to change something.  Every school year, I make the resolution to start bringing my lunch to work.  I guess my kids go back to school and I would like them to pack a lunch and so I resolve to do it to.  When the kids were younger I always packed their lunches.  I knew they wouldn’t eat the school food except for pizza and so I packed.  My son’s teacher came to the home when he was in pre-school (mandatory if the kids are in a head start program to have a home visit) and she told me how good and wholesome his lunch was.  A gold star lunch!  When they went to middle school they wanted to buy and I let them.  The lunches aren’t expensive so I let them buy.  As a result I bought also.  When they got to high school, there was more variety and substitutions and I had to institute money limits for the daily lunch.  I let them know that they could pack lunch at any time, but they weren’t into it.  They weren’t thrilled with the limits though, but they stuck to it.  Unfortunately,leadership by example wasn’t what I was doing.  I wasn’t walking the walk.  I didn’t pack my lunch and my money has slipped through my fingers for food time at work.  So I resolve to cut back on food buying at work and pack more lunches.

I am doing better.  Now that my daughter’s at college, I find we have a little bit of leftovers.  So I am bringing leftovers to eat.  I’m trying not to turn my fridge into a composter.  I’ll bring the fruit to work to eat so it doesn’t go to waste.  I am bringing the drink mixes in the pouches to work.  While they are fifty cents a piece if you buy them in the cafeteria or the sundry, they are much cheaper if you buy the box.  I keep a box in my desk drawer plus I’ve got a cup I reuse and fill with ice and water from the water fountain.  I pour in my mix and I have a drink to go with my lunch.  Bottles of soda just went up to 1.35, so this is a big cut in spending. 

My son came to me the other day and said that he’s going to start looking at the menu for the school and deciding to only eat on the days that he likes the food.  He said he’s getting the food because it’s paid for, and he eats it, but he’s not always thrilled or satisfied.  We discussed that he needs to come up with what he thinks he wants in his lunch and how he’ll have to make time to put together his lunch.  I know some of you are probably thinking I as the mom should do it all for my son, but I am a big believer in teaching my kids self reliance.  My son and I have made our resolutions, now we have to get a routine established to follow through.  Maybe if we work on it, my husband will join in too.

Now, I’ll like some help with my new routine.  What’s your lunch making routine?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 5:41 am and is filed under Anecdotes and Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.