When Chula started school, I had these images of a well balanced lunchbox. Every meal would have a serving of fruit, a serving of vegetable and whole grain in some form. Chula was not a peanut butter and jelly kind of girl. I wanted to make her all these fabulous desi food with a western twist so that it isn’t too ethnic for her lunch box, at the same time she wouldn’t turn her nose on the regular desi food. The slide show pictures are pictures I clicked every day I packed her lunch. I had to share all the exciting recipes and my culinary adventures so I promptly opened a separate blog space. Unfortunately that space is sorely neglected 🙁

Every day morning this would be the conversation at the UTBT household.

Me: Kanna, What have I packed for lunch?
Chula: Chula names all the stuff I have packed.
Me: What should you do?
Chula: Aachu pannu. (I must eat it all.)
Me: Because……?
Chula: Amma worked hard on my lunch.
Me: And…..?
Chula: You will be so proud of meeeeee!
Me: And…..?
Chula: You will be so happy of meeeeee!
Me: What should you bring back?
ONLY the lunch box.
Me: Should you throw food in garbage to bring back empty lunch box? (I wasn’t giving her ideas. She being MY daughter*, I was just covering my bases to make my statement water tight.)
Chula: No, thank you we don’t do that. We eat the banana flesh and throw ONLY the yellow skin in garbage. We eat cheese and throw only the cover in the garbage.

Same dialogue is repeated one more time in car. This time with specific questions like, What do you do to chapathi? Should you bring it back? Should you throw it in garbage? So on and so forth.

This dialogue also had my chithi(aunt) in splits. She was rolling on the floor laughing because it reminded her about the roadside shows where the person performing the show asks his assistant, ‘Vaa yindha pakkam(Come here)’ , ‘Vandhen(Okay, here I am)’. ‘Ayya yenan vechurukaru? (What does the gentle man have?)’, ‘Panam vechurukaru(He has money)’….

Coming back to the point, at the end of all this yap, yap, yap, yappity, yap, yap, yap, the food came back untouched. I let it slide by for a week. Hey, the child has just started school, may be she will start eating once she settles in. I would pick her up at 3.00PM and feed her the contents of her lunch box in the car.

After couple of weeks I asked her teachers what was going on. They said that she was busy socializing and how much ever they keep reminding her that she MUST eat, she just goes yap, yap, yap, yappity, yap, yap, yap. Also, once she told the teacher that she is ‘SAVING’ her lunch so that she can eat it in the car with her mom (*Please allow me some time to finish rolling my eyes.*) and suggested that I stop feeding her in the car at 3.00PM. Now, this is a child who left home at 8.00AM with just a cup of milk. Yes, she takes two whole hours to drink 8 ounces of milk and there simply is no time or patience in me to make her eat breakfast. (The morning drama is a post by itself!) I cannot not feed her at 3.00PM. At least to save myself from a cranky Chula I have to do that. I told the teacher that this is not an option and the vice simply must be tightened on her at lunchtime. The teacher said that she would do special arrangements.

So dear Chula sat right next to the teacher in a smaller group (lesser the kids lesser the distraction) and sometimes subtle threats like, ‘Do you want to eat or sit in a table by yourself?’, ‘Do you want to eat or go to the infants class to learn how to eat?’ and emotional black mails like ‘Chula, mommy got up at 4.00AM to make this yummy food for you. You are not respecting her work. Please eat.’ were administered.

At the end of all this food patterns are still highly erratic. I have superstitions like:

  • If I send food in green lunch box, it always comes back untouched.
  • Oh, she finished her milk in half the time she usually takes, so she will not eat her lunch.
  • She usually loves this food. I am so confident that she will finish it, so she will decide not to eat it today. (One day cheese pizza came back untouched and I got the shock of my life.)
  • I equally dread the days she finishes every bit of her lunch because, on those days she would come home and throw up continuously till the next day morning. OMG!

    • Anyhoooo…. all excitement associated with lunch making and packing has subsided and I have settled in to a boring humdrum.

    Mon: Chapathi, string cheese, dry raisins and nuts.
    Tues: Mac and cheese with broccoli and carrots, dried blue berries.
    Wed: Spinach kuzhi paniyaram.
    Thurs: Bagel chips, snap peas, tofu, nuts and dry fruits.
    Fri: Idli, fresh green beans, peanuts.

    B……O…….R……I……N………….G

    PS
    * Separate post on how the apple does not fall far from the tree.