THE GOOD ENOUGH Parent THE PERFECT LUNCHBOX

Monday, 7.30 am: O cially our last day of holidays.

Inspired by my Facebook feed full of bento boxes with literal sushi art, cucumber octopuses (or is it octopi?) and strawberries cut into love hearts, I have planned a fun day around becoming the kind of mum who can do this level of school parenting. We start with smoothies made from the bananas and strawberries I had remembered to freeze the night before. (Nailing it!)

Monday, 7.42am: I announce we’ll go for a quick swim then grab co ee and take it to the park. Full of false confidence this morning for some reason, I feel inspired and not overwhelmed when I say this out loud. Miss Eight looks up from her iPad and asks if I’ve looked outside yet.

Monday, 7.43am: As there seems to be some kind of typhoon weather event happening, I quickly scale back our plans and ask what they’d like to do this morning. Miss 14 announces she’ll make me a co ee if she can have her computer. I pause briefly, but decide that all the perfect Instagram mums either don’t have teens, or give them excessive screens as a coping mechanism and so I agree to her bribery.

Miss Eight asks for more iPad time. “Why don’t you and I have some special Mummy-Miss Eighttime, because we’ll really miss each other after today?” I retort.. She pats my hand lovingly before saying, “Yeah. But I’ll miss the iPad more!”

Monday, 9:40am: I let them know we are o into town. A quick run to the pharmacy, then the essential “show-o lunch” supplies followed by co ee and cake, and then home to do some good old-fashioned lunch box baking. Miss Eight perks up at the sound of that and inquires, “do you mean like that one time you made pizza scrolls AND cheesy-mite scrolls?” I immediately have a PTSD flashback of her ‘helping’ me roll out dough we made from scratch, which was crazy elastic for some reason, and our attempts to shape it into a rectangle.

“Um, uh huh,” is the most I can commit to.

Monday, 10:03am, outside the pharmacy: “...and baby carrots, mini cucumbers, mini capsicums, cheese sticks…”

Miss Eight’s $60,000 shopping list is interrupted by a phone call from my editor in Sydney, wondering where I am and why I’m not in the Teams meeting yet.

In my desperate bid to be a perfect mum today, I have somehow forgotten that it’s Monday… and I have a job!

Monday, 5:35pm: I still have a job, after pitching a story about an overwhelmed mum who tries so hard to fit in with the Instagram lunch box crowd that she literally forgets about work.

Unfortunately, there’s no bread for tomorrow, the only cucumbers and tomatoes are full-sized ones from the veggie patch and the pizza scrolls… Well, I admit they were always a pipe dream. But, with the help of a sheet of pu pastry, a jar of vegemite and the cheese I’d bought for enchiladas it means that there’s something homemade (and edible) at the end of the day.

Although the truth is Miss Eight won’t even care. She’ll be so busy playing with friends she hasn’t seen in six weeks, settling into a new classroom and sizing up her new teacher that I know she won’t give lunch a second thought.

Still, I do one last scroll of shame, telling myself it’s for inspiration... An email from school immediately interrupts this train of thought: Canteen open from Wednesday Most inspiring thing I’ve read all year!