Why Don't My Lunches Look Like Brady Bunch Lunch?

I loathe making lunches. Cole and Patty are currently in day camp for three more weeks. The camp has convenient lunches available to buy, but I’d have to sell one of my children to afford it for the remaining one. It’s not like they are gourmet meals either, folks. We’re talking pizza and mac and cheese. So I will gripe and gripe and gripe some more and make my own lackluster lunches. I usually procrastinate until Sunday night, when I am tired and cranky and dreadfully anticipating Monday’s chaos.

Both my kids are ultra-picky to the point of annoyance. Add that fun factor to the two food restrictions of the camp: no meat (due to religious reasons) and no peanuts or anything made with peanuts out of respect for the peanut allergic kids. This considerably narrows our window of choices close to the menu offered in prison.

Because of my somewhat anal retentive nature (hard to believe, I know), I create an assembly line of 2 rows, 5 bags in each and start dropping the food in, so it’s all packed for the whole week. My sister, a tenured preschool teacher says, “We make fun of parents like you.”

How did Mrs. Brady pack 6 lunches every day for her bunch? Oh, I forgot, they had Alice, who lovingly packed each kids’ special favorites each day. The food groups were probably all represented in each perfect lunch. Why don’t my lunches look like Brady Bunch Lunch?

Some of the delectable choices Cole and Patty agree to eat:

Main course: portable yogurt, jelly sandwiches, edemame, plain bagels and cream cheese, “not too saucy” cheese pizza.

Sides: string cheese, baby carrot bags, individual applesauce cups, Goldfish crackers “the cheddar kind, NOT the rainbow kind, they taste yucky”, Pirate’s Booty, pretzels.

Fruit: apples or grapes (cut in half for fear of choking…ok, I know, my kids are 8 and 5, they can probably handle a whole grape, but I’m paranoid).

Beverage: organic chocolate milk (I make sure you know it’s organic so I can appear somewhat health conscious), Capri Sun fruit juice, “but not Wild Cherry”, this flavor has been permanently vetoed.

As long as my kids have somewhat of a nutritionally sound caloric intake, and are growing at an acceptable rate, I’m happy. If a professional dietitian analyzed this horrific lunch menu, they would sadly inform me that in the future, I can expect lactose intolerant, fat kids. I say, we’ll smash that bridge when we come to it.

Any ideas for other edible possibilities? Please leave any thoughts, comments or scoldings for my lame lunches.