Thursday, August 21, 2008

AND

I'm pissed at the lunch lady that wouldn't let him eat his cookie yesterday.

I saved that dinosaur cookie since his birthday and was so pleased with the thought that he'd have such a special treat on his first day of school.

He said he ate all of his sandwich and most of his fruit when he went to take a bite, and some lady told him he had to eat his entire lunch first, and she shoved it back into the lunch box, breaking its head off.

Back off people, if I say he can have a cookie, he can have a cookie. Would they prefer that I send nothing BUT the sandwich and cookie, to make sure he actually gets to eat the cookie?

Do not like. Not one bit.

35 comments:

Sullivans said...

Oh no. I would be marching in there and giving them a piece of my mind. But motherhood has made me bitchy like that.

Anonymous said...

At least the school didn't send a note home saying that any kind of "dessert" was forbidden. You know some places are doing that to crack down on the obese kids. Nevermind the fact that the school is eliminating P.E. and recess. :(

Bethany

Joy said...

They seriously need to CHILL at his school

Marie said...

My son got in trouble for laughing in the lunchroom last year. Does that send a positive message?...I think not

Monica said...

What the hell kind of Nazi school does this little kiddo attend?! Who the HECK decides if a child can eat the lunch HIS MOTHER PACKED HIM in a SPECIFIC ORDER. Isn't that the joy of lunch at school? You get to eat what you want IN WHATEVER order because your mom isn't there. Man, I'm mad and I don't even have kids.

But yay to you for being such an awesome mom that you planed a prize! Good job! :)

kelly bee said...

I think these witches have just had no one to boss around all summer and are on a major power trip now! Send cookies and Red Bull tomorrow!!!

Anonymous said...

Good grief!

You may need a letter campaign. That's ridiculous. Maybe you should only send cookies.

said...

I hate that schools have started to view the lunchroom as a prison yard. No fun to be had. Kids have to be quiet and behave all the rest of the day, give the kids time to be kids when they're eating! Geez!

When my brother was in school he was forced to take a milk even though he told them he was allergic (almost instant, explosive diarrhea when he consumes dairy) and of course, if he took it he had to drink it. Not a fun experience for a first grader to poop himself at school. My mother went up and chewed the cafeteria manager up one side and down the other.

I hope you're able to work out the issue with BK's school. When I worked in public school we weren't allowed to restrict what kids could eat or couldn't eat. We could suggest that they might eat their entree before dessert but I couldn't make anyone do anything. Good luck, Ashley. Tell BK I'm sorry that mean lady broke his dinosaur cookie.

Life, Love And Lola said...

Since when do lunch ladies have this much authority? They use to be sweet old ladies with hair nets, moles and orthopedic shoes. This lunch lady deserves a serious ass whoopin!

Anonymous said...

So, I'm not the only one who thinks our public schools lunch policies are completely whack! At my daughter's school, they have to eat lunch and not talk to each other above a whisper. A room full of kids sitting next to each other and across from each other and they're supposed to keep their voices down. If they get "loud" the cafeteria manager or Principal gets on a microphone and starts screaming at them. I hate it but since the principal is in on it, what's a mom to do? I mean, why can't they let the kids eat lunch and TALK to each other for god's sake!

Maybe I'll send cookies and red bull for lunch as protest this year. Great idea!

Katie Ryan said...

Yeah, I'd be one pissed-off mama too. That kind of stuff really gets me going!

MzLiz said...

On his first day of kindergarten my son got off the bus crying--his teacher made him stand in the corner because he had hummed while coloring--on his very first day of school! She told me that the first few weeks of kindergarten were "boot camp". It broke my heart--and still makes me feel sick thinking about it... and he's a junior in college now.
I don't understand why people would choose to work with kids then do such mean and stupid things to them. I'm a teacher and I still don't get it.
Just keep being the caring and supportive mom you are -- your kids are lucky to have parents who love and look out for them. Believe me too many kids get this kind of treatment at home as well as at school

Anonymous said...

That would piss me off too. Obviously, he didn't pack his own lunch and had your permission.

Now I'm scared. Ds's first day is today and I packed him a treat too. :-P

Sasha said...

That just pisses me off for you.

Hugs to you and BK.

Former Fat Chick said...

Oh, just wait ....it's get worse. My son was actually suspended for 3 days for flicking a spoon full of yougurt at a kid. "they" said it was food fighting and any form of fighting is an automatic 3 day suspension. Wait 'till your boys enjoy "zero tolerence" which = zero brains in the heads of the people in charge at school!

Lauren said...

Poor Big Kid. What kind of school doesn't allow a parent to walk a kindergartener to their classroom. And the whole lunch thing jut pisses me off.

Hautemama said...

Was it something I said???

Unknown said...

What do you mean Hautemama?

I am not a fan of zero tolerance, and I'd be furious about no talking in the lunch room and no desserts period.

The standing in the corner thing INFURIATES me.

Love the Red Bull and cookies idea.

Anonymous said...

When I was in school, during lunchtime there was a stop light in the cafeteria that changed colors if we got louder. If it got to red, we couldn't talk for the rest of that day and the next day, either. I hated lunch. I prefered to be in my classroom. Lunch ladies suck!!!!!! Poor BK, I hope he got to eat his broken (sad!) Dinosaur cookie later!

momtoabean said...

Everyone else covered what I had to say. But I wanted to just leave a comment anyway :)

I bet that lady was a whore, stupid bitch.

Anonymous said...

ooh, i remember the stoplight! (i had the pleasure of public school for 2 years) it would give off this horrendous sound when it turned red.

psychos

Anonymous said...

B/c teaching a child to overstuff themselves just so they can have desert is ALWAYS a smart move.

Idiots. Let a child eat until they are done, whether or not the "plate is clean" and then let them have the planned desert.

Anonymous said...

When I was in elementary school (way back in the 80's) one half the lunch room was allowed to talk each day. If it got "too loud" then we had 'silent lunch' the next day. Usually by Christmas we were having silent lunches everyday for the rest of the year. If you were caught talking, you had to stand at the 'bad table' at the front of the lunch room, no sitting for the entire lunch period and you had to stand by the wall at recess. And that was at a public school! Luckily, they never said anything about our food or in what order we ate it.

I would definitely be calling the school and giving them an earful! Who do they think they are. The cookies and red bull is a great idea! What a bitchy old lunch lady!

Melodie said...

We had the red light at the private school I went to. And the principal/head nun would stand there and glare at everyone when it even got on yellow.

As for the lunch issue, it's not all public schools that are like that. The elementary school my girls went to (and Katie will go to one day) was not like that. They did have issues with noise, but the way they handled it was that if the noise got too loud (ie. yelling) the lights would go out and everyone must be silent until the lights came back on. Normal conversation level was just fine.

And no one told the kids what part of their lunch they could and couldn't eat or in what order they had to eat. If a parent sends a lunch for their child and the child skips the good stuff and goes directly to the snack, that's their problem - they packed it. Common sense maintains that if a parent has a problem with their child only eating their snack, then that parent should stop sending snacks with their child. The school doesn't need to be involved.

I'd send nothing but cookies with BK tomorrow just to make a point. One day of cookies for lunch isn't going to kill him or make him obese.

Hautemama said...

Just wonderin' - you didn't publish my first comment.

Unknown said...

I didn't get it, I swear! Submit again, you know how I love the comments, I don't turn them away.

The quiet lunch thing is bizarre. As if that would ever be a real world situation? Isn't that what we're "training" them for? The real world? What work place would only allow half of the room to speak at a whisper during lunch time??

Freaking communists.

Hautemama said...

Haha, yeah I said something about how they did a similar thing to my kids, and I think it's terrible.

Also, how long are your kids being given to eat? My kids have 15 minutes, which I feel is just not enough. My son is a very slow, picky eater - and there are days that he comes home with his entire lunch.

Unknown said...

Jeez! This school needs to pull the stick out of its ass!! Do they seriously think this is part of their job? Shit I would be threatening to pull my kid from that school after the hall thing and this cookie thing. Crazy.

Mary Beth said...

Okay, I just commented on the post below and now I read the horrible lunch lady story! BK's school staff needs some serious attitude adjustments!

All of the lunch room horror stories are killing me. I'm down in the lunchroom every day, and I'm the one in charge of keeping it sane in there. I'd like to think that I use some common sense when dealing with things. I like to let them talk and I have a pretty high tolerance for the noise. And I encourage the kids to eat a balanced meal, but I certainly don't force it.

If it seems like it's getting out of hand, I will get on the microphone and talk to the kids. If it gets really bad, I might have them be silent for about a minute or two, just to help them calm down. I never make them be silent the entire lunch period. It's not fair to the kids and it is a nightmare to try and monitor them because of course, kids being kids, they will try to talk when your back is turned.

I do take food throwing seriously, but not a 3 day suspension! Usually that will land a student eating by him or herself for a few days.

Ashley, you and BK need to come to my school. We'll take care of you : )

Mitch said...

I love hearing some of the common sense lunch ladies post! It is really calming my mind for future issues that I may come across! Thanks sane lunch ladies!

Nomers said...

Poor guy! This school of his has a stick up it's ass.

Renee said...

Where is my comment?

-The Renee

Anonymous said...

I had a similar 'incident' with my son's kindergarten teacher once. They told him he couldn't eat vanilla wafers I sent with his lunch, because they were 'sweets', but they gave graham crackers to them for snack. Huh? I calmly pointed to the drinkable yogurts that contain 45 grams of sugar (way more than the nilla wafers) and told them to get OUT of my son's lunch box. It worked, they shut up. I'd tell your BK to respond calmly - if heaven forbid they ever say anything again - that 'mom told me to do it this way' and further arguments can be taken to the school office. But that's just me.

Mel said...

It is unbelievable that the employees at this school allow their stress or dislike of their job to make everyone miserable. There certainly is a way to be firm, yet kind. My daughter has Autism (I was the one who left a comment irritated at "anonymous" who diagnosed your son with Autism several months back), and she is very sensitive to people being angry, stressed, or irritated. (It makes parenting her quite interesting, let me tell ya!!) I know that there is a lot of that going on at school right now, because after a week of school, she doesn't want to go back. She can't really tell me what exactly is bothering her, but I pretty much get the gist when she says school "worries" her. I'm hoping it is first week jitters, for everyone involved, otherwise I'm going to have to do some major investigating, and/or volunteering in her class room. I have a feeling the teacher may have raised her voice a couple of times with a couple of students, (it doesn't even have to be her) and that is enough to freak my little girl out.

I agree with a couple of your commenters. Why are these people even in these jobs if they seem to hate the kids so much? I know they need to be firm and lay down the law to keep chaos from breaking out, but at this age??? My sister teaches at an inner city highschool with lots of gangs, and yeah, she is tough, because she HAS to be. The kids in highschool are as big as adults, and can be quite scary. What the hell is scary about a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds that these people feel the need to be total Nazis?

I'm with most of your commenters. Let them know that you will not tolerate your son being terrorized. I am sure that he is brilliantly behaved in the lunch room, and if he wants to eat a damn cookie his MOTHER packed into his lunch box, then by GOD, they should all back off! Ahhh! I can't stand it when people are mean to kids!

No wonder so many people are choosing to home school their children these days. Let us know how things go.

Beth said...

I don't have any kids in public school right now (we went from public to private to home) but the stuff I am reading makes me so SAD. I feel horrible for these tiny little kids whose spirits are being broken because they are shoved down a hall all alone or told that they can't have their special treat that mommy packed. I would absolutely be complaining, too. School employees work for US (the taxpayers) and really need to be accountable to someone.