Paper or plastic? It's paper all the way

Paper lunch bags may not be all that environmental compared with insulated, reusable ones but they are cool and that's important at a certain age. They were all we had when I was young and today they are also paying big dividends for Mom (more on that in a minute).

The boys don't want to bring their LLBean insulated lunch bags to school anymore because they are NOT cool. I personally don't see what the problem is, really. Matthew told me that only some of the 7th grade girls still bring the insulated bags. Oh yes, these boys are hip with their brown bags. And I should have seen this coming last year when Michael would sneak his packed lunch out of the insulated bag and surreptitiously transfer it to a paper one.

Being cool is very important. And if you're not, I can't help you.

When I explained that all this wasn't very environmentally friendly, they suggested they could bring the brown bags home to re-use. (I haven't seen evidence of this yet.)

Confession: This made me remember Mary Darling, who we judged very harshly for this as caddy girls in 6th grade. I can see her wrinkled lunch bag carefully folded up flat, on top of her pile of school books to this day. Mary, I would respect you now.

There is an upside of all this brown paper bag trash. For some reason (it probably has to do with all the 'weird' and probably uncool things I would put in their lunches), the boys are now packing their own lunches! Can you spell Hallelujah? There are a couple of different ways . . .

Confession: I would sometimes put things in the boys lunches that they might not always eat at home because I know when I am at work and away from the cornucopia of food choices at home - I will eat almost anything.

Unrelated thoughts

• Daniel found a patch of wild time while peeing in the brush before a soccer game. I am not kidding, I verified that it was thyme. What 7 year old boy recognizes this herb in a pile of weeds?


• I confess my driver's license has listed me at 142 since high school. I was 142 or less ONCE in those 30 years. You gotta have hope, right?


• "I got only 2 wrong on my assessment," Daniel explained. "What's that?" I asked. "You don't know what an assessment is?" he asked playfully and somewhat incredulously. This boy may have a career as a politician . . . .or a botanist. Time will tell.