Sunday, January 17, 2016

Neverending lunches

Sorry to be so long between posts but I have been making lunches every free moment of my day.

Okay, not really. But kind of.

We are almost three months into my return to work and it has been an interesting ride to say the least. We are adjusting, but I wouldn't say we have adjusted completely.

Back to the lunches. I forgot about the lunches. I forgot about coming home, making dinner, putting one kid to bed, cleaning some dishes, putting the other kid to bed, finishing the dishes and finally thinking you can sit down with a glass of wine or a mug of tea and pop on an old episode of Grey's Anatomy but then those pink canvas boxes creep into the corner of your eye as you turn and you let out a curse because darn it all if you don't have a damned thing to put them tonight.

Seriously.

I run out of bread mid-week. I cannot find anything to give Baby Macaroni so I fill her bento box with frozen peas and frozen corn and cubes of cheese and pray that she eats it. I plan ahead and spend my Sunday slaving over the stove to make individual muffin sized portions of macaroni and cheese and cheese stuffed meatloaf, only to have Baby Macaroni eat none of it at lunch.

At least, however, I am now remembering to make the lunches consistently. The first week back when we had a transition schedule, one of the daycare teachers kindly informed that they weren't sure if The Babe was staying the whole day because I had only packed her a cut up orange in her lunch bag. My face glowed with shame as I tried to laugh it off.

I think that making lunches is the bane of most parents' existence, am I right? Those crazy pastoral scene bento box lunches are fake, nobody actually makes those. Don't be ridiculous. I get fed up just slicing apples for my kids' lunches. I think I could make a million dollars if I invented a core-less apple with a peel that just slid off. Now all I need is an angel investor and perhaps a smidgen of knowledge about botany and I'm set!

Speaking of those bento box lunches, I just deleted the Pinterest app on phone. After another crockpot fail, with an expensive head of cauliflower to boot, I decided to kick my addiction cold turkey. I did it! You can too! I do miss those images of soft cookies and beautiful art, but I don't miss staring into the oven or crockpot and thinking "how the eff am I going to get them to eat that?"

Being back at work reminds me just how many errands I actually run and how little time there is to do them once you throw an 8-hour workday and a daycare pickup in there. And I don't even have to drop the kids off the morning, my husband handles that thankless task. We have streamlined our mornings somewhat though. The Babe gets to pick her outfit the night before, with assistance from me. I make a big batch of oatmeal on Sunday or overnight in the crockpot, so that both the girls have breakfast for the week. I'm crossing my fingers that translates into no more Cheerios in Mommy's bed, but I don't believe in miracles.

Having Christmas in there so soon into my return kind of threw us all for a loop. While the days off together were great, the comedown in the first week back at work and daycare was brutal. It was as though we completely forgot everything we had learned and practiced in December. There were many lunches that again consisted of crackers and cheese and frozen verggies.

But here we are mid-January and it's Sunday and I have just managed to cut up four apples, four oranges and make soup that will serve as tonight's dinner and tomorrow lunch. So I'm good. Unless The Babe and Baby Macaroni decide they don't like apples and oranges. If they do, they can make their own damned lunches.




















~ H