The Snack Time Minefield

Nine years ago when Nat was a Kindergartner, we had some issues with class snack. We were montessori-ing it at that point, and snack time and civility was a big deal—bring your own placemat. So the plan was that every twenty days we'd bring snack for twenty kids. Simple enough, no? No.

First came vegan mom's horror, Oreos. ("What kind of person would feed their five-year-old Oreos?!? At 10 in the morning!?!" [I plead the fifth.])

Then came nut allergy mom. ("Actually, if any of the kids eat peanut butter before they come to school, would you mind bathing them thoroughly before they leave for school? In fact, could you just stop eating peanut butter in your homes? Thanks!")

Then the dairy allergy raised it's ugly head. ("Not everything. Just milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, those sorts of things. Bread is OK.")

"Please no wheat allergy. Please no "dried fruit causes cavities" dentist's kids, please!" became my prayer. I distinctly remember the day I went to make ants on a log and bought cream cheese to use instead of pb, but then realized that cream cheese was dairy. OK, ants next to a log.

Such a stress. It took months before the teacher came to the conclusion that everyone should bring their own snack for civility time. In the meantime, I just brought in boxes of back-up snacks and tried to stay out of the line of fire.

It's hard to find something that works for twenty different mom/kid combos. One person's yum is another person's yuck. Hummus, a favorite of vegan mom, gagged my daughter. People's definition of healthy varied widely. Although most of us recognized Oreos as a nutrition fail, fruit snacks, yogurt, and muffins also raised a ruckus among some parents.

Fast forward to Caroline's class which started last week, it took precisely two days and a glance over everyone's health forms to reveal that some of our cuties have nut allergies (almonds, walnuts, pecans—no peanuts, amazingly enough) and dairy sensitivities. By that night an email went out explaining the issue and explaining the new snack procedure. It was pretty complicated: bring something your child can and will eat in a container marked with her name. Works for me.

But here's where my brain stalls out. You can run into kids with conflicting needs. My best friend's son had food issues. He ate nothing but Jif smooth peanut butter and honey bear honey on Home Pride butter-top white bread (PBH). What happens when that PBH boy is in the same school as death by peanut fumes girl?

When Nat was in fourth grade she couldn't bring PB in her lunch, because there was a girl in her class that had a preschool sibling at home who had a deadly allergy. There's an entire school in our district that is peanut-free. And I get it. You can't just say, "Suck it up and carry an epi-pen! Gotta enter the real world sometime, kid." But can you say, "OK, we'll go to tube feeding for you, PBH kid"?

I'm guessing most people would vote for PBH boy to just be hungry until he gets home and say that if you just feed a picky child a variety of healthy foods and don't give them their food of choice when they fail to eat the options before them, they'll get hungry enough to eat something other than PBH. Eventually. I bear my testimony that there are children in the world who will not eat rather than eat undesired food. I've met them. I've seen heroic efforts put forth by admirable parents. I've seen the kids begin to waste away. Not pretty in a land of plenty.

So what to do when picky runs into food allergy? No clue. And I'm glad I don't have to decide it. Just glad our Kindergarten teacher decisively took care of snack so quickly.

Praise and thanks be to the Yvil Sister

Mission San Francisco de Solano, front

Mission San Francisco de Solano, back

L-Boy is in fourth grade, which in California means a California Mission Project (CMP). The Y-vil sister went to the craft store and bought stuff—a styrofoam do-it-yourself model, a bunch of cute plastic thingies, some peat moss and a bag of sand. Then she had three making the CMP dates with L. I don't know who had the better time. Yvil was like a little kid in an art class, L was serious, yet happy, and I was out of a dreaded task.

Yvil delegated the procurement of the cross and the CMP fact card to me. Two things. You think I could have excelled. But as we all know in addition to being more fun than mom, aunties are also more efficient.

Although I looked very thoroughly in all of my normal [cheap] stores, the only cross I found that was the right size and not firmly attached to an angel was a chocolate one. I got it, but Yvil had already given up on me and had carved one out of leftover styrofoam. Thus did L gain a snack.

Then Mr. L and I nearly came to blows over the CMP facts card last night. In the end, the card came out looking great. L and I had a big long snuggle to make up for the grumping. Still I was emotionally spent; just imagine if Yvil hadn't taken care of the hard part. I owe her. Big time.

Great job, L.  I love you. 

Quick Update

I met with the Principal today. What a painful experience that was! The bottom line is that the school staff will now be checking the bathrooms during lunch. The principal was much less laissez-faire than his secretary. And that's a good thing.

Guilt-tinged Gratitude

Have I mentioned we're poor? American poor that is. No starvation going on here, but in general when the kids take their cans of soup to the food drives or make cards for the needy, those items tend to come back to us.

This year so many people are having financial difficulties that I was certain there would be very few gifts for the children other than what I could procure. The day after Thanksgiving, I did some pretty impressive Goodwill half-price sale shopping and was calling it good.

Then our Relief Society President asked if they could give the children each a present, something they needed.

"Thank you. That would be nice."

A week later, the Bishop told us that he'd recommended us to a company that chooses a family each year to adopt. Clothes, mostly.

"Oh, that would be nice, very nice!"

Shortly thereafter, a sweet lady called and told me that the weirdest thing had happened. She'd been buying a tree and a guy came up to her and asked her if she wanted an extra tree because he'd gotten an extra for free. So...did we have a tree yet? Could we take this one off her hands?

"Um...OK...I love real trees. Thanks!"

As my lovely RS President handed me three big black garbage bags of gifts for my lovely children the week before Christmas, she explained that we had asked for so little she added a "few things" to our requests.

"Wow! Thanks! The kids will be thrilled!"

Monday, the 22nd a man showed up to my door when I was expecting a friendly acquaintance from church.

"Hi! Jami? I'm Bob [all names have been changed, except mine]. This is Sandra, Robin, and Jason. Where would you like these?" says he pointing to a few charmingly wrapped gifts.

"Uh, on the couch I guess. Thanks."

"Oh we'll need more room than that. Ho, ho, ho!" And they proceeded to bring more and more and more gifts in.

I suspected they were the company to whom the Bishop had given our information, but they had probably ten gifts per child, much more than I was expecting.

"Um, thanks so much. Um...who are you?"

"Oh, replied Bob. "I already told you: I'm Bob. There's Sandra and Robin. And he's Jason."

Cute, thought I, but who ARE you? "I mean who are you associated with? Are you related to Dave who was coming over at 10?"

"Dave? We're no relation to him . . . but we know him."

OK, Misters and Misses Anony-mice. I get it. No clues. "You really know how to raise my kids' heart rates," I joked. "That's a lot of presents. Thank you!"

The kids added their heartfelt thanks ["Thank you!"(N) "Thank you." (V) "Thanks." (E) "Niiiice!" (J) "Tanksyerwelcome!" (C)] and our benefactors went their merry philanthropic way.

Ten minutes later, two teachers from the school dropped off a turkey, a huge bag of oranges, a half dozen cupcakes and a big box of food.

An hour after that, Sister Sweet delivered a lovely ham and a huge box of yummies.

The receiving cooled off for a day. Then came Christmas Eve at my mom's, relaxed and wonderful. The angel-monkeys sang for Grandma, and two of them played their trumpets. After that came the gifts. Concerned that the kids were not getting many presents this year, mom and the Yvil-auntie got them nearly everything on their lists.

Let me tell you...there was much rejoicing Christmas morning. N in particular just kept opening each of her gifts, hugging them, exclaiming, "I'm just so happy!" Even I teared up a few times.

I am filled with gratitude towards the founders of our feast. However, I do feel a bit guilty: all of that just for us when so many are needy this year. Also I think I may need to buy some carbon offsets for the wrapping paper/cardboard/shrink wrap abomination that constitutes our garbage this week. And perhaps, just perhaps, we concentrated a bit too much on gifts, and not quite enough on Christ this Christmas.

A Fundraiser Most Foul

Last Tuesday, as I was volunteering at the kids' school, they had an assembly for the QSP/Reader's Digest fall fundraiser, so instead of helping kids with their multiplication facts I ended up stuffing folders. I'm OK with that.

I'm not going to whine about taking academic time to train little salespeople. Or the fact that the QSP folks were whipping the kids into a frenzy of greedy enthusiasm that could be heard across the school. Or the fact that when my son got into the car that afternoon, he fully believed that selling 200 items was completely within his nine-year old abilities. Or the fact that each of the four kids who came to my house that afternoon also believed that they could sell 200 flippin' subscriptions/kitchen gadgets/cans of nuts. I'm not going to gripe about the fact that my son thinks that if I just loved him more and was willing to put out a little time and effort on his behalf the freaking iPod Touch would be his. I am not even going to gripe about the fact that the Girl Scouts are doing the exact same QSP/Reader's Digest fundraiser right now. Three girl scouts + two school kids = five simultaneous fundraisers to support. That's OK; I'm game.

No. The thing that has fixated my foul fascination is this: The girl scout council is selling a ten-ounce can of Reader's Digest/Ashdon Farms/Pleasantville Farms cashews for six dollars. The school? THIRTEEN dollars for that same can.

Go kids, go! Sell 200 cans of THIRTEEN dollars nuts! In an income challenged neighborhood. Nice. Very nice.