It’s been awhile since I’ve bossed the world around and told you how to live your lives, and I’m sure you’ve missed it. I mean, crap, you guys are probably all naming your kids Dest’n’ee and going pantless to the grocery store without me to tell you what to do. I should really stop being so selfish and get back to performing my civic responsibilities! But dangit, sometimes my life isn’t all that funny. Last week it was all angry, angry, ANGRY snotty toddler and sleepless nights. Not humorous. So, sometimes I have to turn elsewhere to tickle my funny bone and stir up my inner snark. Awhile back, I heard about the site NickMom from Nickelodeon and it’s a place I go to from time to time when I need a good laugh. My latest favorite? This hilarious infographic post “What does your snack offering say about you?”
Because REALLY. The genius cartoonist and NickMom.com revealed something to me. Some of you put too much effort into snack time. And based on the snack idea pins some of you are pinning on Pinterest, you also have way too much free time.
But I’m betting others of you, like me, are totally phoning snack time. And to you I say, “ROCK ON! Ain’t nobody got time for Bento boxes!” Here’s a sampling of the snack offerings currently available to my children.
Yes – those are Cheez-Its made with WHOLE GRAIN. Health food, people!
I like these snack offerings not for their pinnability but rather for their ability to make my kids quit asking for food and sit in blissful silence for a few minutes while they eat. Hmm, now what does that say about me? I think the folks at NickMom would probably say it says that I like to hide in the bathroom watching Netflix while my kids are eating their after-school snack. But they’d be TOTALLY WRONG. I actually watch Hulu Plus during that time. So there.
Just to prove that not all moms are complete snack slackers comme moi (that’s French! Deal with it, ‘merica!), I did a little Pinterest perusing to find snack ideas that many of you cray-crays are pinning – and that some Senior Cray-Cray in Charge of Facilitating Mommy Nervous Breakdowns has actually created – and decided to dole out my own judgments on what your snack idea pins say about you. Annnnd here we go!
Snowman Cheese Sticks. If you pinned this snack, what does this say about you? It says you *might* have too much flippin’ time on your hands, lady. You’re going to take a sharpie and draw faces, buttons, coal eyes on a cheese stick? You’re going to change marker colors for a carrot nose? THEN you’re going to tie a ribbon scarf on each little faux cheesestick neck? AND painstakingly cut out a dozen little black construction paper hats to affix with some sort of adhesive onto their faux cheese heads? REALLY? If you pinned this and are even considering making this cutesy snack into a reality, YOU NEED TO GET A HOBBY. I suggest you choose a hobby that does some good for some people. Please, please, please volunteer for a charity instead of using your free time to decorate snack items that are only going to be digested and turned into excrement. MMkay?
A Very Hungry Caterpillar snack. Aww, that’s so sweet! You want to make your kids a snack based on their favorite beloved children’s book! You know what that says about you? It says you love them very much. And also? It says you’re not going to be prepared for the psychological collapse they’re going to have when they enter the real world and realize that an apple is just an apple! Look, mama, life isn’t Disneyland, and snacks aren’t magical. Don’t deny your child the simple pleasure of loving food for its taste. Besides you’re setting a dangerous precedent here. If you continue in this vein you’re gonna be up past midnight making Harry Potter-themed school lunches every darn day for the next twelve years. IT’S A SLIPPERY SLOPE! Turn back!
Super-disturbing feeding chickens egg-and-pepper snack. Ummm. If you pinned this, or – God forbid – presented this to your children to eat? What does this say about you? I will tell you what this says about you. It says we can never be friends. If we haven’t met yet, don’t bother. Because you are already dead to me. If you think hard-boiling chicken embryos and using vegetables to make them look like actual chickens who are themselves eating is a good idea, we cannot co-exist. And also? It says you should check yourself into the nearest psychiatric facility to get some R&R and maybe take a class or two on things that are actually important!
Allright mamas, I’m done berating you and your over-zealous snack idea pinning (for now). If you’re stuck in a rut pinning All The Unreasonable Yet Adorable Snack Ideas, I suggest you close that tab on your browser and open a new one and click over to NickMom for a few laughs and hopefully a reality check! For even more funnies, you can find NickMom on Twitter and Facebook, too.
What kind of snacks do you give your kids? Just plain food, or do you dress it up a little?
Ain’t nobody got time for Bento boxes, you say? AMEN!!! (Although…truth be told…I may have pinned those snowman cheese sticks. Not just to have on hand. I’m not TOTALLY nuts. But, you know, for a class party or something.)
I totally did too – for snacktime at Libbie’s school. #peoplepleaser
HILARIOUS and so true. It is about time someone stood up for us normal moms.
Right on, Jenny! When it comes to some of those ridiculous snacks…Ain’t nobody got time for dat!
You made my morning~ and now I want to pin a bunch of things and make them for you kids because, quite frankly, judging by your snack options, you should spend less time doing stuff with your kids than making them “cutsie” snacks for them to eat. You call yourself a mother. I call you a mocker. From this point on, you will be known as a mockmother or mother-mocker. Mother-mocker sounds a bit harsh, don’t you think?
How about mocker-focker?
Becky Dell, ladies and gentleman! A mother-mocker if ever there was one!
You know what cuties things I do for my children’s snack? I actually take the paper off the cheese stick. I just blew your mind didn’t I!
Stop making the rest of us look bad Tabatha!
Sonofabitch, this reminded me that I forgot Sam’s afternoon snack ALL TOGETHER today. Now who will eat the egg pepper chickens I slaved over?!?
Way to go Em. You could’ve really messed with some kids’ heads today and you dropped the ball. Hang your head in shame!
So glad I never got swept away on the Pinterest Train to Overacheivement. All roads lead to feeling worthless, for me. I’m old school–if you are hungry, you’ll eat what I give you. (And I am your mom, so I’m not going to give you something grotesque.) But cuteness is not a factor. I’d rather not feed my child something with eyes anyways!! THAT is kind of weird. “Here’s something adorable–now eat it!” Hehehe.
I did take an extra glance at the cheese sticks…The world has gone all health food no-fun and you can’t send in anything sugary delicious for school soirees. I have a basket in our cupboard full of pre-packaged snacks (granola bars etc.) and on the counter 4 big canisters with dry snacks (pretzels, goldfish etc.) It is a “Don’t ask Mama and FEND FOR YOURSELF” in our household. Yes, the three year old may be crawling on counters and hanging from shelves to get a snack but the kid is self-sufficient 🙂
My favorite snacks to give the kids are they ones they get themselves! Word!
My kids are in middle school and high school. While I’m slightly sad they are growing up I’m not sad one bit that Pinterest was not around when they were younger. Seriously who has tome for this crap?
Bento boxes are the sole reason that these kids can do nothing for themselves these days.
My poor scarred children make their own lunch (shock) don’t let therm in on the secret that there are moms who do everything for them 😉
My kids should just be glad they don’t have to eat their snacks off the floor instead of out of a baggie or on a paper plate. Also? Your snacks would be killer around here. Apple sauce or carrot sticks, kids. That’s the fanciest I get.
I have a crate in the bottom cabinet that boys can pick from! All are prepackaged but for the most part healthy. I have them trained, get yourself one snack and one snack only, big brother must help little brother open snack and mommy stays out of the picture! It’s a beautiful 5 minutes of quiet for me! And that my friends is worth the few extra $$ I spend and the filling up the landfills with the packaging trash!
This cracked me up! Last school year I made these adorable donut snowman things for my daughter’s birthday treat. You take 3 powdered donuts on a stick, use a fruit rollup for the scarf, dip a toothpick in black food coloring to make buttons and eyes, and an orange jelly bean for the carrot nose…it took me 4 hours to make 22 of them! and by the time I got them to the school half of the donuts a broken in half because of the stupid stick in the middle of them. 4 hours…. who spends 4 hours doing that?? Freakin pinterest! Oh and BTW yesterday I found my 4 year old son hiding in the bottom of our cereal cabinet eating cereal straight out of the box….what does that snack say about me??? 🙂
Word! Snack time here is some sort of cracker or veggie straws thrown in a bowl. My 5 yo can get her own darn snack and, god bless her, usually picks fruit or veggies. My 2 yo won’t come never a veggie with a ten foot pole. Who has time for cute snacks.
My kids pretty often refuse to eat dinner, so their only afternoon snack options are things that would actually be healthier than their dinner. If they spoil their appetite with carrots, that is fine with me. Apple, banana, carrots, that is pretty much their choice for a late afternoon snack. If they don’t like that, then they can save their appetite.
Gurrrl you hit the nail on the head with this one. BTW the sponsored posts on Mommin it Up are always so well done — relevant and not full of taffy cotton candy b.s. you know? I appreciate you guys!!
Also – I feel like this over emphasis on the perfect home/food/childhood experience (the obsessive hyper-domesticity, the over-emphasis on child-led AP style parenting, the elitist blah blah blah) is covering up the fact that women still do not have equal standing in the workplace, in government, and in general. Have you guys heard of the “Cult of True Womanhood?” It was a movement in the 19th century that emphasized “True” womanhood and motherhood – – and offered a false view of reality that most women could not achieve then (or now!). Here’s a bit from PBS’s description of a documentary they featured on the subject, “Only among the very wealthiest families were husbands’ incomes large enough to purchase everything a family needed to survive. In the poorest of families, wives scavenged the wharves and alleys for abandoned or unguarded food, fuel, and clothing. Even in middling families, a wife’s labor in keeping a garden, making clothes, economizing with food, and even producing some of the family’s furnishings (ottomans, pillows, mattresses) and equipment (like soap) enabled her household to maintain a comfortable standard of living on incomes that were often otherwise insufficient.”
That’s kind of how I feel about all this. It’s easy to be the “perfect” mama if you have oodles of cash and time to make your kids’ live(s) Pinterest perfect. Okay – after all that rambling, I’m out!
This might be my favorite comment ever! You need to move back to Dayton so we can be BFF.
We could be history geeks together! 🙂 Just two old ladies talking about the Wright Bros. and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
SO MUCH love for this…and you of course! 😉
Hilarious post – especially the chicken one. Always so fun to read your posts…glad the angry, angry, ANGRY week is over. Well, at least for the time being. 🙂
Man, your snack options made me look bad not to mention the Pinterest snacks. My daughter asked me to pack her a snack for school today and I told her no, I was out so she had to eat the class snack available. I felt a little guilty about that as her cute little five year old self left for school. But when she came home, and it seems she didn’t even starve, I got over the guilt.
MOM OF THE YEAR!
I laughed so hard at the eggs/chicken that I snorted out loud. That turned some heads while sitting in the waiting area at my daughter’s gymnastics!
That’s what I like to hear Esther! Inspiring a chortle? That’s what I live for. You made my day!
I love Chrissy’s comment, as well. I also think that kids could care less what their snacks look like. These crafts are adult-pleasers. If a mom enjoys making these snacks, more power to her.It doesn’t make her a better or worse mother, just a craft-loving mother. My opinion on the topic.
Laughing out loud SO hard and I totally should have put my Depends on. Excuse me while I go change my pants (‘cuz I don’t gotz no panties on). I was one of those over zealous snack moms when my eldest was an only child and in Kindergarten. It was because I was a single, POOR mom and I wanted everyone to think I was way more amazing than I actually was. Now I have three kids and I’m like, screw that, dude. I don’t even have time to put underwear and mascara on most days. FORGET the fancy schnacks! You rock, seriously.
Summer. YOU are the wind beneath my (slightly gray and a little saggy) wings. Especially now that you’ve reformed from making cutesy snacks!
Look, my almost 3 year old might look at me like I’m crazy when I tell her, no she can’t have the little graham crackers shaped likes Angry Birds for breakfast, she can have the dry Honey Nut Cheerios I offered her. Angry Bird crackers are a snack, I explain. Cheerios are breakfast. Except when I give them to you at any other time of day besides breakfast the they’re a snack. So if you’d learn how to tell time you’d better understand these subtle differences. Oh there’s a difference between the two… You just REALLY have to want to see it.
Nevermind, you’ll understand when you’re 36.
What if I told you that I’m saving that snowman cheese stick idea for use later? Can we still be friends?
I love this! And I may be guilty as charged for spending my evening with my 7yr. old affixing little black hats to cute little snowman cheese sticks for her class snack tomorrow…. Though, I feel better with the recommendations to offer my time and efforts to a charitable organization. Ironically, I do! Actually, I help out with 2 organizations while the kiddos are in school. I promise that I am not an overachieving, multi-tasking fool. I just really enjoy adult interaction.