Sunday Snacks

I nearly laughed myself to tears one day in the LDS bookstore. I had picked up some book written by another mother, who, like myself, felt some disconnect between actual motherhood and preconceived ideals. In comparison, she had 7x more children than I do (well, approximately; it might have been 8x), but I still felt a sense of camaraderie. She wrote of a Sunday morning where she scoured the cupboards for a snack. In desperation she grabbed a loaf of bread.
My mind revisited a time where my only church snack was banana chips. The boys hate banana chips. I knew that when I threw them in there, and so I spent the car trip developing some elaborate facial gesture to show my shock that the boys no longer loved their favorite banana chips. Another day I left the diaper bag home. We've had some fun ones for sure. Occasionally Jonathan will mooch snacks off surrounding mothers (he looks half-starved, so I think people feel they are doing a public service by feeding him), and Ethan mooches off his brother.
I've learned to spend time preparing snacks on Saturday. Last week, for example, Jonathan found some sort of treat in the ethnic aisle at Wegmans (some Japanese package with strawberry covered pretzel sticks-- Yan Yan?). I felt like such an attentive, prepared mother as I tucked it in the diaper bag with homemade rolls and the little organic veggie sticks Jonathan calls "snakes."
We were sitting in the pew when I saw all of my good intentions begin to unravel. Jonathan tired of eating the veggie snakes, and lunged from his seat in a mad dash for the hallway. I lured him back with the strawberry cracker things. I silently groaned as I opened the package, realizing that Yan Yan's have a strawberry dip, almost reminiscent of Handi-snacks. Before long, I was brushing up roll crumbs from the floor while Jonathan painted his shirt, hair, and seat with strawberry sugar.
I think I will be bringing banana chips next Sunday.