That's really good news!

Hallie came home on her first day of Kindergarten and posed the same question to my parents. The good news was that she didn't have to go to the Principal's office. The bad news was that she had to stand in the corner for a long time because she was talking too much.

So at least Leta didn't hit you with THAT.

That's great! We tried that with our son when he started 1st grade (same age as Leta) but he wouldn't do it. He refused outright. Claiming to fear the bigger kids. You know, the knife-wielding 3rd grades and such. So it's still packed lunches for him. Sometimes he'll claim to be excited about the next day's selection, but he always changes his mind by morning. Hopefully that will change.

But I'm glad you get to bask in not having to assemble lunch in the morning. Go Leta!

PHEW PHEW PHEW PHEW. Every kid hates that salad stuff. The lunch menu makeover is very bad news. Where's the Pepsi machine?

Wow, at 6 years old you're already preparing yourself for the bumper phone call???
Might I mention, and I really don't want to cause you 11 years of anticipatory agony, but expecting the phone call doesn't make it any easier.
And the bumper is ALWAYS discretionary!
It's the kid on the other end of the phone you'd miss a whole heck of a lot more! Our version of the phone call, once each from two different kids, included the phrase "but the deer came out from nowhere, I swear!"

Hopefully there are no calls asking you to bail her out of jail for getting too rowdy with "the girls".

The only thing I've to worry about so far is giving soft foods for my teething toddler. I'm sure you can relate.

My son just started 1st grade. He has major sensory issues along with his high functioning autism and he just started school lunch last week at his very small private school. On Friday he took a bite of his philly cheese steak sandwich. Yesterday he took a few bites of a tuna melt. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that. Seriously. Every day his teacher insists that he try at least one bite and HE DOES IT. In the words of his teacher: "He wasn't happy with me. But he did it." The difference is that at home, he simply won't. He'll go 48 hours w/o food if necessary. He's been this way since infancy. 2nd percentile.
The PEER PRESSURE has actually worked better for us than the OT, which has been somewhat effective.
Having a kid with SID is not the same as having a finicky child. I wish people understood that.
School lunch is $2.50/day and more effective than all the OT I have paid for (and it's been a substantial amount out of pocket) up until this point.
My son is 30 lbs and in the first grade. Last night I sewed new waistbands into all of his school pants so that they don't fall down! Of course, they had to be encased in microfleece because of the sensory issues. But they stay up and they don't scratch. :)

Dude. You couldn't have paid me to take a packed lunch when I was a kid. I loved school food.

...doesn't say much for my mom's lunch packing abilities, I guess.

lots of finicky eaters out there in the 1st grade. My daughter is no exception. Funded her lunch account last year, thinking she would be STOKED to buy lunch at school LIKE THE BIG KIDS (aka her brother, who loves the breakfast-for-lunch option). No dice. She REFUSES to buy lunch at school, to the point where I finally transferred most of the money in her account to her brothers account so it wouldn't go to waste. If it comes in a package, she'll eat it. She loves hotdogs and chicken nuggets, but won't go for them at school. EVEN IF HER FRIENDS DO. She's a *stubborn, independent* picky eater, my girl. Peer pressure? Nope. Doesn't work for us. Which will be good in the future, but not now. She doesn't like sandwiches, either, so she gets a yogurt in her lunch - vanilla only - every.single.day. And I have to pack the spoon because she won't get up to get the spork at school. She'd rather NOT eat than get the spork. And she doesn't eat fruit in it's natural state - but will eat any flavor of fruit leather there is (stretch island fruit leathers - ingredients = fruit and lemon juice. that's it!). A cheese stick, juice, and goldfish crackers round out her daily meal. But if she doesn't eat everything I pack for her, no snacks after school until her lunchbox is empty. That's the deal.

I'm so glad Leta is staying open to new things!!

Was it square pizza? My husband still talks about square lunch pizza from his school cafeteria. He was even able to convince the lunch lady in high school to give him a whole sheet of square pizza to take home. That is some square pizza love.

Although I am not a fan of overly processed food for any meals..... lunch at school is only one meal, is my new theory. My kids' school doesn't have a lunch program, so.... we pack them everyday.

I am happy that Leta is eating better.

We can't send a lot of stuff to school because of nut allergies, which does make a lot of things pretty challenging.

My kids don't eat sandwiches much either (well they like Grilled cheese)

So we send a lot of little snacks. that has been the saving grace so to speak.

Crackers and cheese, one fruit, one veggie, drink and a treat (granola bar or cookies) and sometimes a hot lunch with soup or something like that.

If your kids won't eat real fruit then you might have issues. It's a hard habit to break but you've got to keep trying!

Kids will eat when they are hungry enough... make good healthy choices for your whole family. It work eventually!

Hurray for peer pressure!

Ha, i would have starved if my parents had made me buy school lunch. literally. i have never eaten pizza, or red meat, or vegetables. I didn't even eat french fries for the longest time! It was PB&J, pudding, fruit snacks, etc for me every day...and for the longest time i threw away the sandwich (still feel guilty about that to this day) because i didnt like it soggy and was too stubborn/ashamed to tell my parents so theyd come up with a better option. I only bought school lunch in elementary school maybe once a year on my bday (pb&j of course...this was before peanut allergies were such a big deal), and in middle school or hs only when there was breakfast for lunch or mozzerella sticks. bet i saved my parents a crapton of money though!

glad it's working for Leta!

Don't worry about the bumper.
Worry about when she's 16 and calls you at 2am from the next state and tells you that she and her friends are out of gas and could you go to Western Union and wire her some money to get home.

(I really am sorry about that, Mom.)

Dooce, before you push the school food too much, please watch the documentary "Killer at Large: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat." I just happened to see it yesterday streamed from Netflix. There were many things I wish I'd seen when my kids were eating caf. food. One way to get stuff out of a home diet might be to set a date on which that item won't be served anymore at home -- say 'tater tots. Tell her that on(whatever day) the family will be eating store-bought 'tater tots for the last time and saying goodbye to them, because now that she's growing up she needs different kinds of food, even including tater items made at home. Which she can help make, by the way. If she's like my son was, she needs time to get used to new things. Just some thoughts.

I can see that other people have already said how unhealthy school meals are so I'm not going to harp on about it. But this documentary series by Jamie Oliver has just started over here in England and I was wondering if you'd seen it.
He went into schools and tried to change their eating habits, he did it over here first and even managed to get the government to increase school meals budget so kids could have healthier food. I hope that he manages the same in America too!

http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-r...