Each night my 3 school-aged children have to navigate around each other to make their lunches for school the next day. We started this ritual about a year ago, because one day, a super-tired mother (who shall remain nameless) was tired of the bickering about what I she was packing, not making the sandwiches just right, not liking this snack, I she packed too much, she I could go on.
One day I she said, “if I can’t do it right, do it yourself.”
A wave of empowerment came over my her children, who took the butterknife out of my her hand for the peanut butter, and with said motion, took over the duties bestowed upon them – and became lunch-makers extraordinaires.
Present day, they still do it, but there are wrestling matches, tickle fights, snatching and grabbing going on that prevent them from doing it expeditiously. Let’s not forget placement, as in, lunchbox placement.
For some reason unknown to any of us, the military feels the need to give us these refrigerators in these houses that are hardly the right size. They’re probably standard sized, I could be completely wrong (could be our family of 8, too… can’t forget we’re not the normal sized family, either) but either we have gargantuan food or… these fridges just ain’t cuttin’ it. Sure, we have 3 dozen eggs, 2 gallons of water, 3 half gallons of organic milk, a thing of juice, a few containers of leftovers among other things in there at any time *cough* but.. is it just my children’s lunchbags, or… is the only place they can manage to put it is RIGHT smack where the water/milk/juice goes (the big compartment).
Each night I go to put the water away, or make a juice cup for my four-year-old, and I can barely get the thing closed again let alone take the juice out or put it away. So I have to shuffle the lunch boxes around. Each night I growl and snarl to myself, “AGAIN!?!” I mutter, shifting and moving.
Til tonight.
I mean, yeah, I snarled again, but, it was only just tonight I realized, I’m foaming at the mouth for no reason. I’ve never shared my discontent with their placement of their lunchboxes. Ever. They’re usually already in bed and upstairs fast asleep when I make my discovery. So I can get my undies all in a bunch, but.. it isn’t going to suddenly solve this problem – they can’t fix it if they don’t know what’s wrong, you know?
I think I may have just grown a little wiser. Or, lack of sleep might be having a positive effect for once..
