GO FISH
The nursery school and day-care dilemma requires some serious decisions - especially regarding the purchase of a lunch box that your child will be thrilled to carry.
Stepping up to the plate is the Rubbermaid Company, which reveals this astonishing observation, "An appetizing, nutritious lunch can only do its job if it's eaten."
They've come up with Gilbert the Fish - a colorful, insulated lunch kit. The multizippered bag will inspire 3- to 6-year-olds to gladly gulp down that nourishing June Cleaveresque meal you've packed for them.
With an expected retail of around $10, the kit includes a refreezable Blue Ice softpack to help keep lunches cold longer, a secret pocket in "Gilbert's" tail for lunch money (or pacifiers), and a pocket for "kid things" (snakes, lint, etc.).
The lid folds down to become a placemat, a must for proper young children.
AND . . . the lunch kit "collapses easily when empty."
Just like Mommy.
SURVIVING SUMMER
Clover Club Foods sent us some timely entertaining tips. We've tacked on some extras.
- "Besides the traditional badminton or croquet, try a backyard treasure hunt for the kids. Hide candy, painted rocks or quarters."
(Nordstrom gift certificates are also lovely for the older kids.)
- "Give the kids your old magazines for creating photo essays on a theme of your choice." (The Heartbreak of Salmonella . . . Travels of the Tidy Bowl Man.)
- "Both adults and kids enjoy jumprope games. Jump to the same rhymes you did as a kid, pop music lyrics, or make up your own." (We love to sing-song about varieties of junk food to "The Name Game" . . . Skittles, skittles, bo bittles, banana fanna fo fittles . . .).
- "Card games are fun for all ages. Stop by a bookstore and get a book on little-known but fun card games for all ages." (Old Maid . . . 'nuff said.)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
"We had the first of a very relaxed and informal series of meals with our family. Earlier, when Rosalynn was visiting the White House, some of our staff asked the chef and cooks if they thought that they could prepare the kind of meals which we enjoyed in the South, and the cook said, `Yes, Ma'am, we've been fixing that kind of food for the servants for a long time!' "
- Jimmy Carter (entry in White House diary, 1977)