The Lunchbox Mafia

My 4 year old started school this month. I did not get overly worked up about sending her off. I made a big deal about it to her, but I honestly just expected it to be more of the same old, same old.

Boy was I wrong.

She’s two weeks in and can already write her name. She can’t say the names of the letters, but she can, unprompted, sit down and draw them out. She also has 16 new best friends whom she names nightly. She has, in short, settled in brilliantly.

Well, almost brilliantly.

You see, there was one area where I completely dropped the ball. Lunch. I had the crazy idea that she could eat the hot lunch the school provided. I packed her off with £2 and patted myself on the back for a job well done. I had remembered the money, therefore she would eat a nice healthy meal. Job done.

Here is how the after-school conversation went:
Me – What did you have for lunch today?
Addy – FRENCH FRIES! (the all caps is indicative of the volume of the report)
Me – French fries? Did you eat anything else? (Dear God, please let her say a vegetable…)
Addy – A HOT DOG!

We decided to give it another week. It had been a Friday and the first one of the year, so perhaps the menu was in honor of the special occasion. The lunchfare did improve and I began to get comfortable again. Then we hit another hurdle.

The lunchbox mafia.

Peer pressure starts MUCH earlier than I expected. All 16 of her new friends had lunchboxes. It was a bow-headed, four years of age, loud-talking, princess lunchbox carrying mafia. And it was all my fault she was left out.

Together we went and bought a lunchbox that she could open all by herself. We went to the fancy grocery and decided to go for a bento box approach – oat crackers, fancy Cornish cheddar, deli chicken, carrots and hummus and a handful of grapes. It wasn’t a hot meal, but I didn’t feel terrible sending her off with it.

I waited with bated breath for the next lunch report. I was sure I had done well. Instead she came home with the box still 3/4ths full and bitching about the grapes that spilled out onto the floor. Oh, and STARVING!

So I’ve given up. I broke down and bought bread and regular cheese for sandwiches, bananas and a princess juice box.

Does anyone else think it likely that I’ll wake up one morning with a My Little Pony head in my bed if I eff this up again?