What We Eat

Sitting around the lunch table yesterday with my little ones I could not help but laugh at the interesting lunches being enjoyed. First, I would like to point out that a preschool lunch is a full contact sporting event and that it is not for the brave of heart of queasy of stomach. It is never pretty and quite often what enters the mouth comes back out partially chewed after the child decides it is too hot, too cold, too big of a bite, or too yucky, or just funny to spit it back out. We are so classy! So yesterday the lunches caught my attention, probably because half of my class was absent due to illness (the only things we share willingly are germs) and I could actually sit for a moment with the kids and notice what they were eating. My little ones range from a child who is completely dependent on a g-tube to a child who wll eat anything that is pureed or soft (including spinach!) to children who bring the stereotypical American School-kid lunch (sandwich, juice, fruit, snack). What made me smile yesterday was the lunch of my new little one who seems to have autism. Her lunch consisted of choclate milk, pudding, a few slices of a mandarin orange, potato chips, and cheetos. It was the first lunch she really ate all week, other than the chips she filched from the other kids who did not want then when the school lunch had chips and salsa as a side. Somethings are worth fighting, and some are not fights to battle. Right now, I am more worried about finding functional langugage for her than I am worried about if she eats enough variety of food. I am more worried that she not continue to try to drink our paint like prechool shots or walk off the edge of the playground equipment as if she can levitate than I am that she eat vegetables. Really, I am not even concerned if she keeps her shoes on in the classroom because I have greater plans for her and if she wants to learn barefoot while eating potato chips and oranges I am willing to go along for that ride. But her lunch - it still makes me smile.