Snack and Other Mysteries

So last week, Ax’s first week of kindergarten, every day he’d come home with a pretty full lunch box, meaning, he didn’t eat his lunch. Maybe one bite of sandwich, or just the seaweed snacks, but the majority of what I’d packed would still be there. I know my son is not great at stopping to eat when it’s a social situation so I wasn’t surprised. And I wasn’t too upset because the kid eats a lot at dinner. Like, a lot. But this week I thought I wasn’t going to bother packing so much stuff for lunch just to have it mush up, rot, and get thrown out. So yesterday I packed him just a cream cheese bagel and one string cheese, both favorites of his. Plus his fizzy water and thermos of water.

On the way home Ax says, “The teacher let me have some of her lunch today because I didn’t have anything.”

“What?” I say, imagining child protective services waiting for us at home.

“Well I had my bagel for snack and then I only had one string cheese for lunch.”

“Snack?” I say, realizing that I was still working under the old preschool mental model where they gave them snack. Holy cow I haven’t been packing anything particularly for snack.

“Yes so I had nothing for lunch,” Ax says as I cringe in the driver’s seat, but also wonder if he’s running a game on me since he seems to be enjoying telling this tale.

At the stop sign I text the On It Mom and ask if we’re supposed to be giving snack. She calls back and explains the whole snack protocol to me, which she learned a couple of years ago when her older child was in kindergarten. She had a lot of inside info re: snack.

“You pack the snack in the outside zipper compartment of the backpack so they don’t have to open up their whole backpack and lunch box at snack. That’s the best way because otherwise they eat their whole lunch at snack and have nothing for lunch.”

“Ah,” I said. The outside zipper compartment. Of course. “What, umm, what do you pack for snack?” I ask, wondering if good moms are supposed to follow the 30/30/30 program or Atkins or other dietary model every day in addition to actually remembering snack.

“Umm, like a little bag of cashews and raisins,” Ax doesn’t eat those. “Or apple slices with cinnamon,” Ax doesn’t eat that. “Or baby carrots and hummus,” hard no from Ax on that for sure.

“Ok, great,” I say. “Thanks so much. I’ll let you get back to serving your freshly prepared veg, protein, low glycemic carb tasty family dinner now.”

“No problem,” says On It Mom.

I hang up and turn my attention to Ax. “Ax,” I say, “I’m so sorry I haven’t been packing you snack. I will pack you snack for tomorrow for sure.”

“Thanks mom,” he says.

We park, go inside, I open his backpack and lunch box and bloody hell if there isn’t half a cream cheese bagel and an entire string cheese in there. Grrrrr. “Ax,” I say, trying to stay cool, “I see that the food I packed you is still left over, why didn’t you eat that if you needed more food?”

“Ummm, I don’t know, I was too busy,” he said. “Ok,” I said.

I accept that I will never know what really happened at snack or at lunch yesterday. I won’t know what happens at snack or lunch today either, or the rest of the school day for that matter. But I will do my part. Today the seaweed snacks go in the outside zipper pouch. And I’ll throw in a hard boiled egg and see if it goes. Done and done. I’m on it!