No more organic milk and Flintstones vitamins. No more high protein breakfasts, whole grain bread, and healthy snacks. No more “Eat your vegetables” and “Have a piece of fruit.”
From now on I'm feeding the kids Pop Tarts, Kool-Aid, and lead paint chips. They’re growing way, way too fast. We need to cut back on nutritious food at Chez V.
Five months after buying my 11-year-old son an entire school wardrobe, I had to replace it. That’s three pairs of cargo pants, two pairs of jeans, a pair of sneakers, a pair of loafers, two sweatshirts and a handful of t-shirts. Ka-ching.
Ditto the Grrrl, who at age 9 is heads and shoulders above most of her classmates. Halfway through the school year, I had to replace all her pants, jeans, and skorts, and most of her t-shirts. She desperately needs new shoes. No matter what she picks out, she wears two to three outfits constantly and outgrows others before they ever make it onto her short list of “favorites.” The only thing worse than buying all the clothes is seeing some of them discarded with the tags still on them. Ka-ching.
We buy socks and underwear the way some people buy bread and milk, which is to say all. the. time. What isn’t outgrown is destroyed by the extremely hard water here in Belgium. Wash an item three times and it will look like you’ve owned it for years. Grayed. Pilled. Dingey. Crunchy. Ready for holes. Our laundry looks like it should be hanging from a clothes line in a tenement somewhere.
My credit card company is smiling because last night I ordered spring clothes for both kids from Lands End and LL Bean. Today’s task is bagging up and organizing the outcasts and hand-me-downs pulled from the closets and drawers. And I need to get to the grocery store--for bread and water. I'm thinking Pop Tarts and Kool-Aid may be TOO nutritious.
March 15, 2007
Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.