We just did a DoubleX round-up for the Washington Post on New Year’s resolutions (can’t link, it won’t be pub’d until the Sunday after Christmas), and I realized there’s something I forgot to say. I tend to make resolutions and changes twice a year: September, and New Year’s. (I make organizational and career resolutions, usually, which are both things I enjoy, so I really like making resolutions. I look forward to these moments that spur change.

Anyway, this morning, as I desperately cobbled together lunches I should have made last night and watched Rory, in particular, eat her preferred breakfast of Frosted Flakes, no milk, no fruit, I realized that, as so often, we started out strong and have fallen, after a few months of school, way down on our goals. I want them to eat whole foods, and here they are eating bowls full of sugar. I like to be organized and ready for morning, and I was anything but (and yes, we were late, late, late–but Montessori doesn’t care, so I never really worry about it).

I talked to them about the cereal (talked, ranted, whatever) and Wyatt and Lily ate half a mango and half a banana each and had milk in their bowls, but Rory refused any fruit. She did take a second bowl, with milk, which she sulkily at two bites of. I know she’ll eat fruit later–in fact, at about 5:00, if allowed she will eat three apples and, of course, no dinner–but breakfast is one) important and two) a habit.

We get into some communication difficulties with food, still–some about language, some just about sophistication of concepts and some about stubborn-ness. She can have the sugary cereal (at least until the boxes are empty, and then we’ve agreed to eat other cereals for a while before buying these again) IF she will also eat either fruit, or have milk in her bowl. I know she doesn’t want either of those things, but it’s hard to tell if she is just being stubborn, or if she didn’t get the condition, especially as it was accompanied by a description of the milk and fruit as “food” and a description of the Frosted Flakes as “crap.” (I’m really, really not at my best in the morning, but it wasn’t a mean description, just a description.) (And we have the Frosted Flakes because I like them, and Sam does too, mixed in with these super0healthy cardboard fiber flakes that otherwise taste like, well, crap, and if she would eat them like that, it would be fine–but that’s actually the REASON she doesn’t want milk. Because if there’s no milk, it’s easy to pick out only  the Frosted Flakes, but with milk, you can’t separate them.)

And then, because I am making their lunch in front of them, they want input (Hate that.). Rory wants a fruit leather, which is fine, but causes her to say “no” to everything else. As in, shrieks. No, I don’ wan that! No! Not that! The fruit leather is already in there. It’s not like I’m trying to add, say, snakes and fried cockroaches. I am trying to put in some cheese or salami, both things she likes. It’s just that she WANTS the fruit leather and she either doesn’t or refuses to get that I am just trying to put other things in, too. And really, by noon–she’ll WANT IT. Swear.

I finally got her to agree to some cheese (I don’t want to put in a “protein” that she has an unreasonable thing against today because the teachers make them eat their “protein” first–which I would prefer they didn’t, but oh well) and added a yogurt and TIngs when she wasn’t looking.

Anyway, my point? Better to make lunches the night before!