Today my life snaps back into place

I feel re-energized today. I made it to 40. No more 39.997 and holding--I have made it to the big milestone. My thirties were fantastic but I truly do feel ready for something new. It's interesting that this coincides with the first day of school, as my daughter starts fourth grade. She's a different person, too, all of a sudden. She has a new classroom & teachers, and new responsibilities. I drew a line in the sand that set the expectation that she would make own her lunch starting this year. We practiced in third grade, but she had not really taken ownership of the task.

So this morning, she set her alarm, got up on her own, and got dressed. We ate breakfast together and then she did make her own lunch and got ready to go on time. It was so civilized.

This was an incredibly simple family moment, but I mention it because this is a new phase of parenting, as I am sure that anyone with toddlers would agree!

My forties begin with my daughter's growing capability at age nine, and will conclude with her independence as she turns 19. We are at the start of a whole new season.

I am so grateful for school starting as I push to finish revising Mojo Mom. When I negotiated my deal with Gotham I said that I absolutely needed two to three weeks to work after school started, and that was the smartest request I've made so far.

During the summer our whole family felt completely untethered. That may sound freeing, but it was actually disconcerting to try to work without the support of our normal routines. Even with a fair amount of day camp (which we were privileged to have), it just wasn't the same. Today we snapped back into a satisfying framework that the school day creates for each member of our family, right down to our dog's walk schedule.

The feeling of new beginnings is in the air, and I even had a school anxiety dream last night. I dreamed that I was back teaching at my old school, and I walked in to the classroom to teach Chemistry without preparing. I opened my notebook and expected to jump right in, but found that I couldn't! Then I realized I had been away for nine years, so of course it didn't come back to me all at once.

I'll take the energy from that cautionary tale and put it back into something I do know how to do--finish my book!

For all of you Mojo Moms waiting for school to start, whether it's next week or next year, it is coming, and it's a good thing.

"Lunch Lessons" for Parents

In my last blog posting I was upset about fast-food philanthropy brought to us courtesy of our friends at NewsCorp, owners of Fox and American Idol. I had criticized the Idol Gives Back spectacle as a hollow "attempt to create a diet based on vitamin-fortified french fries."

Little did I know that this is the prevailing strategy in many school lunch programs. CNN.com reports that "Schools acquire taste for faux-junk food." I saw that headline and wondered what exactly was "faux junk food." I mean, if it is already junk, how can it be "faux?" Turns scools are adopting a strategy that cuts fat and calories by "furtively supplementing hamburgers with soy and subbing applesauce for shortening in cake." In West Virginia, deep fried breakfast donuts are "fortified with 5 grams of protein and 14 minerals and vitamins."

I was surprised to see that the director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest was quoted by CNN.com as supporting the faux-junk food offerings as "helpful" and "part of the solution."

Count me as appalled. We are barely feeding our kids food in this case. And what happens when they grow up with a taste for burgers and donuts and (non-fortified) "pancake on a stick." What will they eat once they make their own food choices?

I emailed this article to a friend and she told me that our neighboring-county schools are not allowed to have knives in the school kitchen, as it would pose a liability risk. So the cafeteria workers are only allowed to use box cutters to open the massive cardboard boxes full of frozen foods. We have local farms that could supply the schools with produce, but you'll need more than box cutters to prepare fresh food.

There are calls for sanity out there. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley has started the Edible Schoolyard movement that aims to provide kids a real meal at school. Think about how important that is for the children who count on school breakfast and lunches as the most reliable meals of the day. When Alice Waters calls for a "Delicious Revolution" it makes my mouth water. I taught at a school in San Francisco that followed her advice and I can tell you that the excellent fresh food was a huge benefit. I taught until I was seven months pregnant and I am happy to report that my school lunches kept me going during a very energetically draining time.

As individual parents I can recommend that we look at our school cafeteria offerings and send our kids to school with a healthy packed lunch if necessary. The book Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children provides dozens of kid-friendly recipes, nutritional information, and resources.

I admit I am the first one to need to study a few lunch and dinner lessons. My 7-year-old has become very set in her ways and only likes a handful of meals. My strategy is to start cooking more as a family this summer. We do have one recent victory to declare. She has decided that she will eat broccoli, as long as I am not looking!