Making and packing the lunchbox. This chore is on the top of most parent’s hate list. That everyday task that’s cutting into your precious (hot) coffee drinking time, with the looming pressure that this lunchbox has to hit all the “supermom” marks. And by marks I mean, it has to be in cute shapes and cut outs that get them excited to eat, packed in a sustainable container, include a vegetable or two, be nut free, maybe even dairy free, oh and foods your kid might actually eat while sitting through a highly distracted, 20 minute lunch rush.  It’s amazing they get any food down without chocking, to be honest. 

I was tired of this task even before lunchboxes existed for my kids. My kids were just in preschool and once they started having opinions about what goes in their little snack box, I said great, you can help pack it. Some people were appalled when I said my kids filled their boxes. How did you get them to do it? Well first, as I just mentioned, I asked them. Did they just fill it with cookies? No, but I’m sure they wanted to. 

Do you know how many times I have told my kid to “Just try it!”. I know you know, because you’ve said it a thousand times too.  We’ve pressured, and bribed and read every article on how to politely and kindly and not too traumatically, coerce our kids into anything besides bread or crackers or pasta and butter.

This is the never ending game we play three plus times a day with our kids, and we want to win. Bad. We’ll do anything.  We’ll play dirty too. We’ll think by adding spinach to those morning muffins they won’t notice. Rooky move. They have us right where they want us too, because they have no plans of eating our food trickery. They also know that with every “No, I don’t like them,'' they're one step closer to getting that toast. They know that our exhaustion and frustration from making another failed, healthy meal attempt is slowly deteriorating our brains cells and negotiating neurons. 

We can’t give up though, we want to win. We want to feel that we are doing our kids well, keeping them healthy, giving them good habits, but more importantly, we want that super parent trophy.  And by trophy, I mean we want the other parents to see us out to dinner with our kids, sitting quietly, not on their ipads, eating vegetables and a real entree meal. Not the nuggets or butter pasta off the kiddie menu. No. We want envy of all the other parents when our kids takes down that baked fish and those steamed vegetables as if it's covered in melted chocolate.

But you know what? It’s time we give it a rest. I had to. I’m even a health coach, and I had to wave my white flag and tap out.