Lunchbox Angst

Sam isn't even one year old, and I already feel guilty about the inferior lunches I'll be sending him to school with.

I've already told Anne-Marie that I once had a bout of insomnia when Sam was about four months old, due to the fact that I realized I had NO IDEA what I was going to pack for his school lunches... a bout of insomnia that was only alleviated when I got out of bed, brainstormed a list of lunch options, and wrote it down. I've since lost the list.

I have an uneasy relationship with school lunches. I was the world's pickiest eater when I was a kid. I didn't realize until I was, oh, twenty-eight years old, that my pickiness was due to the fact that my mother was a terrible cook (except for desserts; my mom is a grand champeen baker).

Here was a stereotypical lunch for the Wee Doppelganger:

• one sandwich, the contents of which I forget and which are destined to remain shrouded in mystery
• one home-baked dessert (i.e. cookies -- always packed in threes, which to this day remains the quantity in which I consume cookies -- or cake or pie or tarts)
• one store-brand granola bar
• one apple

Most days, everything went in the garbage... except for the dessert, of course. When I think about the thousands of mom-hours spent packing those disrespected lunches, it makes me want to cry. And yes, it's selfish crying. Because the thought that I could spend thousands of mom-hours packing sad little abandoned lunches breaks my heart. Because, dudes, I hate to cook, yo.

Does anyone other than me worry about stuff like this? For you moms of older kids, how do you figure out what your kids will want to eat during the day? Do you have to come up with a brand-new lunch concept EVERY SINGLE DAY? How do you keep sandwiches from getting nasty? Is there a fruit other than the apple that travels well? How much bloody Tupperware do you have to invest in to keep this particular ship afloat? If you make crappy lunches but are really good at making little drawings and notes on post-its that you tuck INTO the lunchbox, do you get any points for that at all? Or are those embarrassing, and if so, at what age does this embarrassment commence?

Oh, and this woman here? With her perfect, home-made, nutritionally balanced, creative, cutely packaged vegan lunchboxes and her little kid who loves them and actually eats them... I kind of hate her a little bit. Sad, huh?