Monday, September 10, 2007

I owe my soul to the PTO

Or the PTA, as it is in our school.

We are now on Week Two of The Great Kindergarten Experience and so far other than being a total crabass every night, it's gone fairly well. And that's not even referring to Monkey Man, just me.

Tonight I sat down and wrote eight checks in various amounts to both the school and the PTA for fees. $5 here, $10 here, oh, and don't forget the $12.25 one either. I honestly don't remember my mom ever writing checks to school unless I actually bought something like something from Scholastic Books. Now, it's "Please send $5 to defray costs of class parties" but they also expect you to volunteer to send shit in. So what is the $5 for, other than an open bar in the teachers' lounge?

It's going to be a long 13 years if I'm already bitching about it.

The other night, I was looking at the cafeteria menu and wondering if Monkey Man would ever buy lunch. We've already set up his little lunch account for 52 meals and dammit, he better eat all 52 meals. Looking at the menu gave me a little pause, though. We're on a 3-week rotating schedule, but pretty much every day you have two new choices and 3 choices that are on there every damn day:

Chef Salad (with some random toppings, like some days it's ham & cheese, other days some mysterious "chicken poppers", whatever the hell that is)
Yogurt/Cheese/Crackers (which also includes baby carrots, an extra fruit or veggie, and milk)
or the standby of PB&J sandwich (with 2 veggie or fruit choices and milk)

I love the second Tuesday - "Lucky Tray Day" with the rather dubious Manager's Choice. I mean, what the fuck is that? Oh, I know, its the leftover "Beef Nuggets with roll" from the day before crafted into something unique like meatloaf or beef stew. Bleh.

Chicken filet sandwiches are on the menu on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Cheeseburgers are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And the third Tuesday is "Student-Planned Menu", which I can only imagine consists of Cheetos and a few good doses of crack.

The best part is that I can actually log on to his lunch account and see what he's picking out. And I made it so that he can't get crap - no chips, no cookies, no Fruit Roll-Ups. Because if he had his way, lunch would consist of ice cream, some fruit snacks, and probably the icing off of a cupcake. Good, balanced nutrition. And since fruit snacks are not part of the food pyramid, I'm kind of glad that I did a little secret censoring of his lunch choices. I'm just waiting for him to figure that part out.

5 comments:

MamaMaven said...

That is a cool system that lets you secretly limit his choices! They passed a new wellness policy here last year that puts the smack down on lots of things. I have been letting PDQ buy her lunch once a week and its an adventure picking which day. So far we are batting .500 one day she ordered what she told me she was going to, the other it was pizza.

Tree said...

N's school is so small that they do not have a cafeteria. So, I make his lunch four days/wk and on Friday is pizza day. It's a good system for someone like me who likes to have complete control!

Mitzi Green said...

hilarious.

i wish i could see what bob is eating. but he tells me. and he likes to eat. so far, the cafeteria is his favorite part of school. i think.

Tanaya said...

Everytime I think about KMan going to kindergarten, I freak and now I'm freaking more. I went to a really, really small school and everybody K-12 ate the same thing. There were no "choices" unless you count "baloney or salami sandwich" as a choice. I'm freaking to think about what KMan will choose for lunch, should he have that option!

Esmerelda said...

Oh, darlin'. It gets better. Homework is just a freakin dream. 'Draw your spelling words in flour' or 'make the words with marshmellows'

Can they provide an assignment that DOESN'T require clean up or sugar? SERIOUSLY!