March 23, 2004 - Tuesday
Harry has not been eating much of his lunch at school lately and that's kind of a disturbing trend. I'm not sure whether that's because he's gotten in the habit of eating a big snack in the midmorning, but it means he'll usually eat a lot of snacks from Jeremy's bag in the car in the afternoon, which in turn means less eating of nutritious food at dinner. We've also had a longer standing battle (is that the right word? it's dangerous, but perhaps) with him about drinking any of the drink we give him with lunch and that seems a little more serious for general health. That concern has us nagging him far too often about it. It's certainly possible the two are related and that we're egging him on in some way.

Yesterday, he at almost nothing of his lunch nor drink, save a few grapes and his plastic cup, single-serving applesauce. After school we lingered at Mary's house, as is common, when picking up Jeremy and didn't get into the car until after 4:00, only about an hour from dinnertime. Immediately and not surprisingly, Harry wanted a snack. I remembered my mother saying once that sometimes not forcing a child to eat dinner can be a good lesson if he ends up going to bed hungry and wanting something to eat. And, it seemed like now might be a good time to have Harry learn a similar lesson. Certainly a big snack an hour from dinner would mean no lunch and no serious dinner. Harry didn't like it, guiltily said he wanted to eat his lunch as a snack, but we got home quickly enough for me to change the subject and distract him enough until dinner as to not argue about it the whole time.

Today, when I picked him up at school and looked in his lunch box, it was completely empty and his drink effective all gone. Had he really eaten all his lunch as it seemed? I asked a teacher who, recalling lunch, said she thought so, although she thought perhaps he hadn't finish ALL his pieces of salami. She also noted that he was very excited about the two slices of raisin bread in his lunch, the reemergence of a one-time regular treat that seemed to fall out of his favor for a while.

There are two things about this I find interesting: first, the teacher said Harry held up his raisin bread and called out "I got raisin bread" to his friends. That kind of what-did-you-get-today lunch time interaction among classmates is a stereotype to be sure. I'm just surprised somehow that it's already happening in Pre-K.

Second, in the car I asked Harry if he had eaten all his lunch and he boasted that he had. I then mentioned, trying hard not to make it sound like a trap, that his teacher thought he might not have eaten all of his salami and he acknowledged that he didn't. I asked whether he'd eaten all the rest of his lunch, this and that, hoping that having not been completely forthcoming about the salami might get him to think it through more. I wasn't trying to trap him, but I was letting him know that I had other information and that it might get him to tell the truth. He said he had eaten everything and went on to list the items. I told him how proud I was that he had eaten a very good lunch (most IS absolutely great), going on to say how I wasn't surprised that not eating lunch yesterday would still affect his hunger today.

But, here's the thing, and maybe it's a third thing: did he eat his lunch because he was hunger or guilty (not given a snack yesterday afternoon)? Further, did he throw away the not-eaten salami consciously to make it look as though he'd eaten everything? I know that cleverness happens with school kids all the time, too, but it's fascinating to think it's already starting and that he's already working his parents at this age. Is he that clever at four?


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