Get back on that horse

There really should be some kind of service to help parents get through the shock and trauma of having to make lunches again after March Break.

Maybe a hotline you can call to talk you down from the counter where you are perched, hands clapped over your ears in a fierce physical display of denial.

Perhaps an app you could download that repeats motivational phrases like, "Stop staring into that open fridge!" and "These lunches aren't going to pack themselves."

Or the deluxe option: a comforting matron who could come by your house, make you coffee and press a cold compress against your temples while murmuring encouraging, lunch-making nuggets of wisdom in your ear.

Sadly, such a service doesn't exist. Thank God for this blog post, then. Lucky, lucky you!

So you say it's only Tuesday and you're already out of fresh fruit? And you bought a Costco-sized box of string cheese only to learn that some of your kids hate it when you send string cheese because the consistency gets "weird" in the lunch bag? Well buck up, Buttercup: you could have no legs. (That's what my mom used to tell me when I was feeling sorry for myself in high school. Helpful, yes?)

Today I will send a lunch, with canned fruit and no string cheese, and it will be fine. There will be Oreos and too many carbs but I will buy some more fruit and tomorrow lunch will be easier to make and the next day's, easier still. Because making lunch really isn't all that hard...it just feels that way the week after March Break.