Mumble’s Blog

It is good to see your children take steps, however small, to becoming competent adults. Today, my younger boy volunteered to do the packed lunches. I’m not sure what inspired this - not the leaflet we recently got home about how to make your lunches healthy anyway. The middlies are fairly conservative about their lunches. They do not want bagels and cream cheese. They do not like mangetout and celery sticks and dip. And they most certainly would never ever eat cold rice and chicken drumstick.

They will however eat nutella, and unfortunately this is what the boy decided to put on the sandwiches. As I was dressing the tiddler at the time I didn’t notice till he’d used all the bread. Peanuts I know are not to be taken into school (allergies), but I thought the hazelnuts they use in the nutella might be OK. Last of the bread v. child with anaphalaptic shock; hmm. I called the school. “There are” said the secretary confidently “no nuts in our school” (well p’raps not by 8:30 in the morning, right enough…). So that’s the nutella out then, along with the last of the bread.

He did do a fine job with the rest of the packed lunch, though. Juice in. Apple, in. Cheesestring, in. Even carrot batons, in, and wrapped. Do I remember to take it with us? Yes! Hooray!

Which leaves only: emergency dash round Tesco’s on the way in to fill up with rolls, and now, the boy is fully equipped with packed lunch. Hooray!

Do I remember to give it to him to take in? Yes. Hooray!

Does he remember to eat it?

Does he remember what?

To eat it?

No.

He gets a school dinner, and I get a slip saying I owe Elite Catering £1.50. Again.

The second last time this happened, I slightly complained about having to pay for it as I had supplied him with a perfectly good packed lunch (albeit wholemeal bread and not nutella). How were they, the school argued, to know that he had a packed lunch? Good point. I arranged to inform the teacher if he had a packed lunch. He did it again - lured by jelly? Forgot? Badness? Who knows? I put it to the school that I might not have to pay for the school dinner this time. They looked me in the eye and asked who brought him up. Seeing no-one else in the immediate vicinity that could be blamed for this, I was forced to admit it was me. And (killer blow) if you refuse to pay for this we will have to take it out of the school funds. You know, the money the poor old parents have worked their fingers to the bone raising so the dear children can have books. Those school funds. But we can do that, reluctantly, if you insist on not paying.

I shelled out. I expect I shall have to do the same tomorrow. What am I supposed to do though? Staple it to his nose?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 1:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.