Three to Get Ready: Lunch

Jayson tries to pack cold lunches for the girls every day. The hot lunches at our school are great, but just a little bit less healthy than how we eat at home. Jayson packed Lydia a tuna salad wrap on Wednesday. She decided at school that she did not like it, so she bought hot lunch. We explained to her that she can't do that because it's a waste of money and she would take that same tuna salad wrap the next day (which she loved, by the way). That night, after Jayson was gone, I told Lydia that I was going to "freeze her lunch account" and she would not be allowed to buy anything except for milk, so she shouldn't even try to.

On Friday, we were in desperate need of groceries, so Jayson decided to let the girls have hot lunch. He called me at school.

Jayson: Hi. Lydia is going to have hot lunch today, so she insisted I call you to have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oh. Yeah. That was big fat lie.
Jayson: Yes, I understand that. But, that doesn't change the fact that I have to call you and have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oooooooh! Yeah! Beep Beep Boop Beep. I just pushed the unfreeze button!
Jayson: Thank you.
Me: You're welcome.

Last week, Lydia and I returned to school. Just like last year, I didn't get to see her get on the bus, but Jayson took plenty of pictures for me. I think it's probably better that I wasn't there because I think both Lydia and I would have been in tears.

Audrey really wanted to go to school with Lydia, and we talked to her about it and told her that when she turns four, then she gets to go to school with Lydia. On the night before school started, we were getting Lydia's backpack ready and Audrey asked if she could use her old one. I told her she could and then realized she meant immediately. She wanted to get it packed and wanted to go to school too. I reminded her that she would go to school when she was four, and then realized she thought that would be happening in a matter of days, not almost ten months. It was very sad, but for now, she's happy getting to go to the gym with Daddy every day.

Last year, Lydia was in K4 and did great. This year, we told her K5 would be the same, except she would eat lunch at school and she would have quiet time. I was worried the most about quiet time because she stopped napping shortly after she turned two. As it turns out, quiet time wasn't what I should have been worried about. She returned from school on her first day and told us she hated it, she was scared of the lunch room, and she wanted to go back to K4. She also barely touched her lunch. So, I did that thing I hate and wrote a note to her teacher on the second day of school to let her know about Lydia's apprehension and to ask if she could please make sure she had a friend to sit with at lunch. The next day, she returned to tell us lunch was much better, she got to sit next to her friend, she ate most of her lunch, and she wanted to get hot lunch. She even had her five-digit code memorized.

She also asked me if she could go to the after school program and I pointed out to her the fact that both her parents are home after school. So, that was a no-go.

Today Lydia again asked to get hot lunch, so I figured out how to put money in her account (I hope) and discussed with her the idea of a "balanced meal." She knows what healthy food are, and I told her she needs to eat more healthy foods than unhealthy foods. I also told her no chocolate milk and she looked at me and said, "That's all they have. Chocolate milk." I assured her they would have white milk too. I'm very interested to see how she does.

Here are some pictures of her first day:

New Phineas and Ferb backpack and lunch box, and Perry water bottle.