The Ladies

Beck: has three kids in school, which means that Beck packs 15 lunches a week, 60 lunches a month and roughly a million lunches a year. You'd think she'd be better at it by now, wouldn't you?

Sue: is a not-so-mild-mannered librarian. Her vegetarian daughter started grade two in fall 2012 and will be in a class where multiple food allergies are a concern. Sue refuses to make heart-shaped sandwiches for anyone--even on Valentine's Day.

Janet: has been making school lunches for 9 years. She still isn't used to it. She has three school-aged kids who take lunch every day. She also recently left the world of freelance writing behind to return to full time work. You know what that means: even more lunches.

Nicole: lives within walking distance to the school her two boys attend; yet she drives to pick them up for lunch. Coming home for lunch may mean no packed lunches, but it means double the trips to school, so she thinks that evens things out. Nicole is a stay-at-home mom who spends an exorbitant amount of time volunteering at the kids’ school; it’s like a full-time job without the paycheque.

Hannah:  hated packing lunches so much as a teenager that she became a nutritionally-challenged vegetarian just so she could skip lunch on the grounds that without meat, boxed lunches were impossible. Now, as a mom of three boys aged 7, 5, and 1, plus the operator of a dayhome for preschoolers and toddlers, she finds herself packing approximately one million lunches and four billion snacks per month. Karma, apparently.