The Psychological Affect of LAWKI on Children, or How the Kids Surprise Me

LAWKI Day 19
September 7, 2010

Breakfast: Oatmeal, with sugar or jam or both
Lunch: Kids-school, M & S-Sandwiches, brownies
Dinner: Bean dip, chips, peaches, John-soup

I imagine 7 layer bean dip would not always be possible if we still did not have some fresh stuff. As it was, it was a good way to use the Romaine we still have that is old, and we have plenty of tomatoes. We still have sour cream, mostly due to my rationing of it. It will be gone soon, except for my own personal container. I am not sure if I will use that for a certain meal, or if it will be used as dip for my bag of chips. Yum!

Michael actually poured and drank a glass of the Morning Moo powdered milk today. The chocolate has been a big hit, so long as you remember to shake before pouring. Until now, the plain milk was avoided, but Michael said that he had drunk regular milk that tastes worse than this. I even took a sip, and found it to be tolerable. Katie thinks it just tastes like 2% vs the skim we usually have.

Maretta, my 2nd pantry neighbor, called and asked if I had bread, offering to trade peaches for it. They were tasty. While everyone else thinks they are not ripe, I love crunchy peaches with just enough sweetness to off set the tart. It was a nice change to have with dinner. We do still have about 4-5 apples, which I am letting the kids and Michael have. We also have some nectarines, but they are old enough that they ought to be thrown out. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Same with the grapes. There are a few good ones, but the others are so bad that it scares me away from eating them. But I still do not want to throw them out.

It seems that the kids are not missing things as much as Michael and I. They don’t seem to crave things, they just miss the idea of things. For instance, Ben says he misses desserts the most. We have had cake twice, cobbler, chocolate zucchini bread, brownies, cookies, ice cream and cereal bars in the last 19 days. I am sure we do not have that much on the regular days. Maybe it is the same thing that am feeling, more trapped because there are limitation to what we can eat and make, when in reality, we still have so many choices available.

I assumed that another reason they were doing fine is that they have the choices for school lunch. They can take the standard lunch or they can go through the fast food lines and get pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, or they can go through a salad bar or a sandwich line. I asked what they have been eating and was surprised to find that 3 of the 4 are basically just having a sandwich every day. Amazing. I would be in that pizza line a lot more than that. The roast beef line does have its own appeal right now...

Another thing about the kids. They hang out in the basement a lot, and I still smell microwave popcorn almost daily. They also went through the soda in the mini-fridge down there and the rest of the granola bars and snacks. I think most everything is gone now, except the popcorn. I might have to go and remove the rest of that and see if they switch to the air popper or find another snack.