The School Lunch Bandit

"What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine." - Modern Proverb

   Our 'Lil Miss has been putting up with our peanut butter and honey sandwiches for some time. She finally cracked and told us she was sick of them, and wanted something else. The Wife did a lot of research and came up with the most popular solution, which ended up being the FUNtainer Food Jar by Thermos. We'd heard good things and have since really liked what we can do with our little girl's lunches. Chicken nuggets, bean burritos, and so on.  The solution to diversifying our 2nd graders lunch menu has also presented a dilemma. The school lunch bandit began to make an appearance and children were coming home hungry.

   Think back to a time at elementary school when you were sitting in front of a lunch that was less than compelling to each. Was there ever another student that had a lunch you coveted? The struggle continues to this very day, as I witnessed when volunteering at my daughter's school one day. Each day, someone has something another student or two wants. We recently had an incident where a girl was taking chicken tenders out of the food jar to eat for herself. The yard duty was called upon, but the girl grabbed another afterward and it ended up that my daughter only at 2 of the 5 tenders I had put in for her. She came home fairly hungry. The next morning upon drop off, I had a chat with her teacher and discussed ways we could discourage the school lunch bandit.

   We've discussed being more assertive with our 'Lil Miss, and hope that some encouragement from the school will all result in everyone getting to eat what they were sent with. I look back and wonder if I was taking it too seriously. I mean, I was REALLY excited about the new tenders we'd bought her. It also made it real when our little gal was digging through the pantry for food RIGHT when she got home. True, she's growing, but coming off of getting to only eat 1/3 of her lunch it needed to be addressed.

   Mixing up school lunches is a massive undertaking. I credit The Wife with working hard to find a solution which we've both been able to implement. I just hope she doesn't ever start asking for sushi.

J.