I’m not running a daisy farm over here.

The other day, I got a new catalog from Pottery Barn Kids, advertising a sale on back-to-school merchandise, and I had to stop to take a good look at  this picture:

Yes, that is a beautiful display, but are we to take it seriously? Are there really moms making this kind of decorative lunch for their children, and if so, don’t they realize how inadequate they are making the rest of us feel?

I thought I was pretty fancy just cutting the crusts off all year, or adding a little note to their lunches. I got these little dessert tupperware kind of things that are pretty impressive. But I have never made a vegetable flower. I couldn’t even get two dozen birthday cupcakes to class without major presentation carnage, so, there’s no way a delicate, edible, wafer-thin flower is making it to school.

What’s the next decorative lunch wave? Origami napkins? Toys carved out of vegetables, perhaps?

But here’s something that’s even more unbelievable: check out the note. Dad made that?

Here’s the one for the boy’s lunchbox, by the way:

Apparently, Dad’s got some time on his hands.