That happened to me today! Yay!
We just came through one of the most soccer-packed, social-packed, traffic-packed, logistics-packed weekends of our lives, which is indeed saying something. Before the weekend even started, I texted the following to my husband:
"Can you hear the circus music yet? I CAN!"
My eldest saw that text in the car on the way home on Friday evening...he got a chuckle.
But I digress. It's just that the weekend was so completely fricking insane that I couldn't manage to do any grocery shopping, so I had to settle for my last minute fall back: take the kids to Safeway in the morning on the way to school to get them breakfast and lunch. But then, I was so sleep deprived, and in such a non-caffeine dither (no coffee in the house either!), that I completely forget to get off the freeway to go to Safeway.
No breakfast. No lunch. No plan.
My three oldest go to school in downtown Oakland, which is a lousy place for a person in search of groceries, especially at 7:45am. So we made the very sad decision to get what we all call Gas Station Food. We stopped at one of those food marts at a gas station and stared dismally at the selections before making some seriously depressing choices. Off Lola went with her Cup Noodles, with a side of her mother's shame and guilt to chase it down.
That was my really lame Plan B.
But the brilliance! The unforeseen brilliance!
When I picked her up after school, she happily announced that her buddy desperately wanted that Cup Noodles and gratefully traded her own lunch: a gourmet chicken caesar salad. Lola was psyched. I was relieved that she got to eat something besides a styrofoam cup full of sodium. It was a win-win.
The best was yet to come, though. Because then I came up with the BEST School Lunch Plan Ever, and the most Affordable. I'm going to buy her a couple flats of those cup noodle things. She'll be the most popular lunch trade in town, and all those other chumpy moms will buy the really good, organic, non-GMO, non-HFCS, locally sourced, locally grown, attractively packaged, liberal-heart-soothing lunches and their kids will trade with my kid. Healthy lunch at processed food prices.
Bingo.
I just love that I learn something new every day, especially when it involves me being brilliant and not even knowing it.
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