Lately, I've just been the best little mom in the world, serving my kids a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash-browns every morning before carting them off to school. Of course, they're the microwave variety, the kind you usually get served on airplanes, but the kids scarf them down and they're hot, all right. I'm usually dashing around like a crazy person trying to get these columns posted and get myself dressed and get backpacks filled and snacks made; the kids may eat alone, and I may eat a breakfast bar at my desk hours later, but I feel good knowing that they've had something that at least resembles real food.

 

And for lunch? Who knows what they eat. We pay for "hot lunch," but do they eat it? They say they do. They say they eat both the entree and the miscellaneous fruits and vegetables that go with. They say this, even though my daughter comes home so hungry she could eat a half a bag of cookies. My lunch responsibility is fulfilled by filling out the order form and writing out the check. Getting them to eat it should be someone else's responsibility. I don't know whose. But I've got breakfast covered.

 

Dinner is my husband's job, and it gets on the table eventually. Definitely before bedtime, sometimes just. My son is a pig at dinner, making up for any lack of appetite he's shown during the day. My daughter is exactly as picky as any other 11-year-old, contemptuous of peas and broccoli and anything not exactly like something she's eaten and enjoyed in the past. It often seems to take her hours to eat, and since I was young once, many centuries ago, I certainly recognize the "maybe if I eat my food one molecule at a time my parents will eventually get tired or bored and let me go away from here" strategy. It doesn't work, but I respect the effort. And I feel a secret satisfaction that however much she fights eating dinner, in the morning, she's always ready for eggs. I have a mean way with a microwave.