My kids like to point out how I’ve socially crippled them with my over-mothering thru the years.  For example, my daughter wore colorful Hanna Andersen tights well beyond the Spice Girl styles and my son sported an adorable bowl cut way past the buzz cut craze. Apparently I have always used strange words like “tubby” instead of bath and “wawa” instead of water and “doedoe” instead of bedtime… and then there was my status-damaging aversion to plastic.

I never used plastic wrap or plastic baggies until the kids had to beg for what they felt to be a basic American right. I have always thought if something smelled like magic markers, it’s probably not a good idea to seal your food in it. Thus, like my mother and her mother before her, I used Cut-Rite wax paper and sandwich bags. My little local Mart still carried them even though the major grocery stores had stopped years before. (My little local Mart also carries Epsom salts, Bon Ami, wooden clothes pins, and Fels Naptha soapJ)

Then one day, when my son was 7 or so, he came home with dirty Ziploc sandwich bags crammed in his Rugrats backpack. Apparently, his class had done some kind of experiment that involved combining dirt and seeds in the plastic baggies to pour into pots in order to create an indoor garden for the classroom. After completing the project his teacher asked who would like to take home the extra seeds for their yards.  My son was the first to shoot his hand in the air, but instead of the seeds, he wanted the baggies.

“Look Mom!” he explained gleefully, shoving the filthy Ziplocs in my face. “You can use these for sandwiches and they seal up when you squeeze at the end here and slide your fingers down!”

“Oh?” I pretended to be impressed.

Not a month later, my then 11 year-old daughter came home from school, sulking.

“Everyone at the lunch table makes fun of my sandwich bags. They think I made them. Why can’t I have plastic baggies like everyone else?”

I didn’t know what to say, except, “You want your food to taste like magic markers?”

They both looked up at me, nodding yes, grinning ear-to-ear.  

I finally gave in, but not before I filled the tubby with wawa as it was time for their doedoe.