Yesterday was NOT a banner day in the Ervin household. We got home yesterday and picked up the boys from daycare only to find out that, while my 9-year-old had a great day at school (no tally marks, woohoo!), my 6-year-old had been hitting people and spitting in the day care all afternoon. Well, that just wasn’t going to fly with me. I gave him a small comment there in the day care and waited to talk to him until we got to the car.
One of my first questions? “What did you eat today?” Well, it went downhill from there. He let me know that he was on red at school in addition to being not so nice at day care AND had chosen to purchase chicken nuggets from school for his lunch. Well, needless to say, I was NOT a happy camper. Though, looking back on it, what 6-year-old WOULDN’T choose chicken nuggets from his school? They’re brown, “yummy” and familiar.
So, I waited a second until I had had just a few minutes to breathe...
“Benton, what did you have for snack today?”
“Ummm, chicken nuggets.”
“No, you said that was lunch. What did you have for snack at day care?”
“Well, I lost the snack that you sent me, so I had chicken nuggets again at day care.”
Oh, Good Lord, help me now in this my time of great trial!
“And your teacher at day care said that was okay?”
“Uh huh.”
So we went home, I promptly printed out our new go-to list for milk ingredients, and drove back to the day care, letting them know that if they were going to feed my child foods that were from the “no longer approved” list, that counting his behavior against him was not very fair. I was nice about it, and made sure not to burn any bridges, but inside, I was a raging bull! My daddy bear came out and I just wanted to RIP TO SHREDS... HULK MAD! But outside, at the day care, I was all diplomat.
Unfortunately, I did what I am all too good at, and took parts of that frustration out on my family. Being frustrated with them about the situation at hand doesn’t do any good, though. So, I calmed down and we went back to doing what we, as a family, are doing best right now: making the best of a bad situation.
I felt so awful for my children, though. Especially Benton. He certainly has the worst of the two in terms of how he reacts to milk. In fact, he’s the reason we figured out the situation in the first place, it's because HIS behavior was so off the wall.
All through dinner, Chrissy was rubbing on the poor child’s head and legs, just trying to make sure that he could sit still for at least the majority of the meal as he sat there squirming and talking and telling and retelling stories from books that you, I, the school librarian and probably the Library of Congress have never heard of. Tales of how the small vegetable got hurt and hit somebody and... and... and... and... but Daddy, are you listening? Benton, you really should be quiet, now. But daddy, the vegetable... I’m trying to tell you about the vegetable. Benton, just hush. Really, you should just stop talking.
So the vegetable was at school...
BENTON, no more talking until we get home. (I can feel my shoulders drooping just having to recount his behavior.)
So... after that evening, he finally “came down” about 8:30 p.m. and went to bed without incident. Long story short...
so long school lunches.
I’ll be sharing a recipe tomorrow for a coconut milk chocolate mousse. We’ll bring it to the movie night at our church, so those around can give it a whirl (assuming there’s any left). I’ll also be posting a review of a cheese substitute we found.
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