My camera started flashing an error message on Monday afternoon, so most of this weeks photos were taken with my iPhone.
Monday:
Monday’s snack had a cup of blueberries and clementine wedges, a half a mini baguette and a little monky box with strawberry jam for the the bread.
Tuesday:
Lunch and snack on Tuesday was Pirate’s Booty, more baguette and jam, clementines, blueberries, rice balls with happy faces on them and salami.
Wednesday:
Wyatt is totally ga-ga for the laptop lunch box right now, so it went back to school with him on Wednesday with many of the same items: bread and jam, whole wheat pretzel sticks, blueberries, clementines, a strawberry cereal bar cut in half and stacked, and baked teriyaki tofu.
Thursday
Thursday’s lunch was crackers, salami, clementines, dried cranberries, and half a hot dog bun. Wyatt has informed me that he doesn’t like sesame seeds, so I just sent the bottom of the bun.
Snack was Pirate’s Booty and I didn’t think it was worth photographing.
Friday:
Friday, I sent pretzel sticks, blueberries and a clementine.
Monday’s snack was quick and dirty: tortilla chips and pineapple salsa (in the pink box). I also included a red heart candy because I love him.
Tuesday:
Tuesday’s lunch/snack was: a half mini baguette, strawberry jam (in the little blue box), a hand full of grapes, blueberries, some Pirate’s Booty, a little red heart candy (in the yellow box), a square of cornbread and cubes of pork tenderloin. You’ll be happy to know he was able to eat the Pirate’s Booty with no interference from the teachers at the club house.
Wednesday:
For Wednesday’s lunch I sent baked tofu cut into giraffe shapes, grapes, blueberries, a square of cornbread and ranch dressing and sugar snap peas.
I have to crow a little about the peas and the ranch dressing. This is one of my favorite snacks and I have offered some to Wyatt every time I ate it for years. I’m guessing that I started asking him if he wanted some when he was 2 years old. Usually he just flat out refused to try it. Very rarely he’d try it and tell me he didn’t like it. But I kept asking just in case he changed his mind. The other day he was willing to try it, which in itself was a big deal. But then…
He ate it all!
And then he asked for more!
I don’t have the crazy expectation that he’ll eat it every time I give it to him just yet, but it’s a start! Keep the faith, people!
For snack, I made a blueberry muffin and banana monster. Raaaaahr!
Thursday:
One of Wyatt’s friends at school has a Laptop Lunchbox, so he’s been requesting that I use it to pack his lunch and snacks more frequently. Now that he’s eating more, it makes a lot of sense to use it and it’s pretty easy too, so I’m happy to oblige (when it’s not in the dishwasher, that is.). Thursday’s box had whole wheat pita wedges, toasted, spread with a smidge of butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, leftover pasta with red sauce from dinner the night before, blueberries, baked tofu cut with cookie cutters and colored with a food marker and a chunk of banana.
Friday:
Friday’s snack was a bun with a bunny drawn on it (BUNny! Get it? Ha ha! I amuse myself.) and some clementine wedges.
No school on Monday because of the MLK day holiday!
Tuesday:
Tuesday morning, I completely forgot to take a picture of Wyatt’s lunch! That doesn’t happen very often. We weren’t even in a big rush or anything. I snagged his lunchbox when he got home and managed to get a picture of it before he started snacking on it. Have I ever mentioned that he is strongly encouraged to eat anything he leaves in his lunch box as an after school snack? I always check to be sure it is still cold and safe to eat, of course.
Anyway, this lunch had: grapes, a whole wheat dinner roll (all gone), Pirate’s Booty, peaches with sprinkles (all gone), baked tofu (partly eaten), a slice of cheese (invisible behind the food divider), and dried cranberries.
I was shocked that the Pirate’s Booty was untouched and I asked Wyatt why he didn’t eat it. It turns out that the teachers at the club house (day care) wouldn’t let him eat it until he ate his “growing food”. This was super-annoying to me because:
a.) I specifically packed it so he could eat it at snack time and told him about it, so he was disappointed that he didn’t get to eat it.
b.) Everything I pack in Wyatt’s lunch box is nutritious and meant to be eaten at any point in the day. If the bulk of his lunch and snacks for the day are whole grains, fruits, and lean proteins it’s not going to kill him if he eats 100 calories worth of Pirate’s Booty before he eats the other stuff. It’s not like his whole lunch is full of potato chips and candy bars. And I also know that he’ll eat everything if he’s hungry enough.
c.) I feel like I’m pretty stingy with the treats most of the time, so if I’ve got something a little less healthy in there now and then the kid should get to eat it.
d.) Finally, I’m his mom and I make the decisions about what he is and isn’t allowed to eat. If I put it in his lunch box, it obviously has my seal of approval.
Wednesday:
Lunch on Wednesday was a whole wheat dinner roll, peaches with sprinkles, a chicken apple sausage and a little bit of catsup (in the yellow box).
His snack box had graham crackers and a half banana in it.
Thursday:
When I went to pack Wyatt’s lunch on Thursday it felt like we were out of everything but somehow I managed to put this lunch together. I sent garlic toast (made with the last slice of bread) grapes, and four slices of salami.
I packed two boxes with snacky stuff. The photo above shows the Pirate’s Booty — which they let him eat this time. I also packed another box with a half banana and some pretzel sticks and I forgot to take a stinkin’ picture of it. I’m sure you can use your imaginations on that though.
Friday:
Trader Joe’s had big boxes of fresh blueberries when I went to the store this week, and after weeks and weeks of bananas and clementines, I was powerless to resist the call of the sweet little blue fellas. So this snack box had a nice little cup of berries and two mini blueberry muffins. Of course I had to pack it in a blue box.
Monday Wyatt didn’t eat much lunch before school, so I packed him a fairly big lunch. It had salami, a clementine and some cheesy crackers. I packed it in one of the new snack boxes:
This box is kind of plain, but I really like how you can see through it. It’s the little things in life that make me happy.
Tuesday:
I had a heck of a time getting Wyatt’s lunch together on time on Tuesday. We woke up late (7:30 — woo hoo!) and then I couldn’t find Wyatt’s thermos which was a problem because I had planned to give him spaghetti with butter and garlic for lunch. Augie likes to get into the cupboard with the lunch supplies in it and carry them all over the house. I found the thermos lid under Wyatt’s bed, but I couldn’t (and still haven’t) found the jar part anywhere. I have a really bad feeling it was thrown in the garbage and is now clogging a landfill. But I digress….
I was really depending on the spaghetti for the bulk of Tuesday’s lunch and try as I might, I couldn’t dig up anything else substantial so I packed it anyway and hoped he’d eat it cold. That was wishful thinking, of course. I also packed clementine wedges, graham crackers and some salami and I tucked a small carton of yogurt right into his lunch box.
When I cleaned out the lunch box that night, this is what I found. Wyatt opened the yogurt, took one bite and then put it back in his lunch box where it gooed everything up. Yuck! Do you guys find this kind of stuff in your kid’s boxes? I can’t be alone on this one.
Wednesday:
Wednesday’s lunch was a clementine, grape tomatoes, baked tofu cut into teddy bear shapes and decorated with food markers and a slice of plain, white bread.
I packed graham crackers and Pirate’s Booty for the snack. The graham crackers wouldn’t fit in the container I picked, and I had to break off the corners to get them in box. I told Wyatt they were special Battlestar Galactica crackers, but I don’t think he got the joke.
Thursday:
Thursday was Laptop Lunchbox day. I packed Pirates booty, dried cranberries, a maple caramel that Zach brought back from his recent trip to Montreal, clementine wedges decorated with a piece of fruit leather that I cut into a bear shape, some American cheese that I cut into strips, whole wheat garlic pita wedges and some chopped chicken leftover from dinner the night before. I was very proud of Wyatt because he asked me to put the chicken, pita and cheese in this lunch — all three foods that he not only tried, but admitted that he enjoyed this week. The chicken is HUGE because he’s been saying he hates chicken for two years now.
Friday:
Friday’s snack was salami and clementines again. It was packed in another new snack box, this one procured from the dollar bin at Target:
In other lunch-related news:
I came across a very interesting link today that I thought my fellow lunch-obsessed parents might be interested in:
This brave teacher is eating a school lunch every day in 2010 and recording the experience. It’s fascinating and horrifying to see the meals she is served. When will the people in this country value children — all children — enough to spend the money to fill their tummies with healthy and delicious food? For so many children, school lunch is the biggest and most nutritious meal they are served all day. For far too many it is the only meal they eat. I do appreciate that the school lunch programs are doing the best they can with the money and resources they have to work with — it’s nice to see that this school sometimes serves fresh fruit and whole wheat bread — but with just a little more funding and/or the willingness to try some of the more innovative programs that have been popping up, I wonder what they could do for these kids.
Hi guys! I’m finally back with a lunch post! Wyatt was sick Monday and Tuesday with a terrible stomach bug (poor guy) so I don’t have anything to show for those days. I got some new toys over the holiday break though, so I’m hoping to make it up to you with some total cuteness.
Wednesday:
First up is the new bento box that I sent Wednesday’s lunch in. This one is a double decker box that’s long and skinny. I’ve never seen one this shape before, so it’s kind of fun. This lunch had a dinner roll, some chicken on skewers, two clementines and a half banana. I also put a message on the roll that was written with the best of intentions, but that, in retrospect, seems a little rude now.
The snack also went in a new box (we left a bag with 3 bento boxes in it on the plane so I had to replace them). The snack box had some dried cranberries, cheesy sandwich crackers, and the other half of the banana. This box broke when I was washing it Wednesday night and I had to get rid of it after only one use. Drat.
Thursday:
I broke out the big cute-ification guns on Thursday. I finally remembered to pick up some nori at the grocery store so I got to use the new face punches I ordered from JBox a few weeks ago on some rice balls. Are those insanely cute or what? I also bought some little alphabet cutters at Ichiban Kan and I used those to cut Wyatt’s name out of baked tofu. The rest of the lunch was a clementine, sesame sticks, peaches with sprinkles and dried cranberries. I was sooooo proud of this lunch that I almost wanted to keep it for myself.
This is what came home. Seriously. That kid sure wants to keep me from getting a big head.
The rice balls…they…um…what the hell did he do to them? None of them looked like they even had a nibble taken out of them. So what’s up with the faces? Did he just scrape random facial features off? Why would he do that? I’m baffled.
Anyway, this just goes to show that no matter what you do to a lunch, you can’t make a five-year-old eat anything he doesn’t want to eat.
Friday:
Friday’s snack was fairly simple — just a few clementines and some graham crackers. It was also packed in a new box. I’ll try to take some pictures of the whole thing (with lid) next week.
Monday’s snack box had some crackers and a half banana in it. Yawn. He didn’t even eat it.
Tuesday:
Tuesday’s lunch had a winter wonderland theme: Garlic toast cut into tree shapes, Christmas tree tofu and a little snowman pick with some grapes skewered on to it. The idea was that the grapes on the pick would look a little snowman-y, but that didn’t really come across. Isn’t that pick cute though? I got it out of a pack of cupcake decorations (cups and picks) that I picked up at Target.
Snack was a half baby baguette, dried cranberries and two spritz cookies.
The lid on this box came home broken (drat!) so I’m going to have to get a new one. I’ve found that the lids on these Daiso and Ichiban Kan bento boxes are always what gets broken first.
Wednesday:
I busted out the big lunch box on Wednesday and packed it with: turkey meatballs, grapes, a rice ball, catsup (for the meatballs), peaches with sprinkles, a catsup sandwich made on garlic naan, and some carrot sticks.
Thursday:
Lunch on Thursday featured a clementine, some grapes, baked tofu decorated to look like a gingerbread couple and a half a baby baguette. I think the gingerbread man came out pretty well, but the gingerbread lady…well…she looks a little bedraggled, doesn’t she?
The snack box had the other half of the baguette, a little jam for the bread in a monkey box, some dried cranberries and a few jellybeans.
About that monkey box — a few people have sent me emails asking about it. I got it at Daiso, a Japanese dollar store chain with a hand full of locations in the U.S. (they unfortunately only sell wholesale online). The outside is just terribly cute.
And the inside has space for a small amount of a condiment. It also comes with this little spoon/spreader with a banana handle. I usually use these for catsup, but I sometimes pack butter or jam like I did today.
Friday:
Friday’s snack box had graham crackers, a clementine and a some grapes. I wrote words on all of the crackers with food safe markers so Wyatt could practice his reading.
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bentos · food · kindergarten · photo
