Cool for School: Bento Box Lunch

Like all toddlers, M has become a picky eater, so I like to give her a lot of little options for lunch, rather than one or two things. Enter the "Bento Box" lunch. Bento is technically a home-packed or take-out meal common in Japanese cuisine, with each little component of the meal compartmentalized in its own little section of a box or container. I needed something that a toddler could open herself (so not a lot of individually topped boxes) so I took it upon myself to make my own "box" using the Easy Lunchboxes I found on Amazon, and put 4 silicone muffin cups that I got from Michaels craft store (like these here) in the large side of the lunchbox.

Here are some of her latest lunches:

Fig Newtons, trail mix, Mandarin oranges, Bon Bel cheese, grapes and PB& J roll-up

Raspberries, hazelnut wafers (dessert), bunny pretzels, cheese,  cous cous and beans (leftover from dinner the night before) and turkey with American cheese stars

Raspberries, Goldfish, strawberries, cubes of cheese, soy crisps and Mickey Mouse PB & J

Strawberries, cut up cheese stick, raisins, chopped up protein bar, Fig Newtons and mandarin oranges (a day when I needed to go grocery shopping!)

Cantaloupe stars, pretzel flats, gummy fruits, pink beans, grapes and turkey and cheese

Other things I like to put in here: 

- Carrots and Hummus

- Tuna on crackers

- Dried Cranberries

- Pirate's Booty

- Honeydew Melon or watermelon

- Rotisserie chicken

- Veggie Sticks or chips

- Yogurt covered pretzels or raisins

- Dried figs or dates

- PB & banana sandwich

- sliced hard boiled egg 

- mini muffins

If you are making a sandwich, use a cookie cutter or sandwich cutter to make it more exciting and cut fruits and veggies into fun shapes too! I used these mini cookie cutters for the hearts and stars shapes you see above. 

For more ideas, read my previous posts on Toddler lunches! 

Cool for School: Lunch for the Picky Eater

I used to brag on here that M was an adventurous eater. She would eat bits of whatever we were having at meal time and she would woof it up all by herself. I felt sorry for those parents who were making chicken fingers and PB&Js all the time for their picky eaters, as I was whipping up a roasted beet salad for M. I should have known that my kid would be just like every other 2 year old out there - a picky eater.Now I am lucky if she eats 1/100 of what is on her plate. Doesn't matter whether it is chicken fingers, or grilled pork...the kid hardly ever eats. She will have one or two days a week where she eats non-stop, and then the other 5 days she eats like a freaking bird. No matter what I make she will pick at it for a few minutes and then tell me "all done. I want to go play."

When it came time to pack her lunch for camp this summer, and now pre-school, I was terribly nervous about what to put in her lunch box. She would be away from home for 4 hours, and wouldn't be able to ask for 100 different things like she does at home (all of which she has one bite of of course.) What if she hated what I sent for a snack and was starving? And then hated what I packed her for lunch and threw a fit? This gave me more anxiety than actually dropping her off at school!

So I did research, as I have mentioned here on the blog (see this post and follow me on pinterest as I have a board about toddler food ideas), and decided to go the route of the Bento box lunch - lots of little compartments for lots of little snacks, instead of the traditional sandwich-and-sides lunch route.

M seems to be digging this whole idea too, as she comes home with an empty lunch box every school day. So I figured I would share some of my lunch ideas on a weekly basis to inspire all you moms making lunch for your kiddies! I would love to hear what you are packing these days (for lunch, not heat :) as I am always looking for something new to try...

Here are some of her lunches from last week!

Goldfish, mini carrots, cheese cubs, rotisserie chicken, grapes and yogurt pretzels

Turkey and American cheese, veggie chips, oranges and gummy fruits

Kiwi, mandarin oranges, goldfish, strawberries, bananas with peanut butter, and turkey and cheese

Cool for School: Part One (Mental Preparation)

There are certain things in your child's life that you look forward to: the first smile, the first giggle...we were dying for M to walk, which she didn't do until around 19 months (much later than all her friends.) There are certain things in your child's life that you know you have to do, but the idea of them is so unappealing you would rather get a root canal. Potty training is one of those things (as Coco Baby Mama talked about in her article last week) for me, so I have yet to actually get my butt in gear and seriously start training her. Moving her to the big girl bed was one of these things too - but after a few days of putting her back in bed for two hours it ended up not being as big a deal as I had made it out to be. I fear potty training will not be as easy as the big girl bed transition by any means.

At the top of this list of things I dread has been dropping off M at school for the first time. Since she was born I have pretty much been with her every day of her life. Sure my husband and I have gone on vacation, but no longer than 3 nights, and she was with my parents (who at most times I think she likes more than my husband and I). She has been left with a babysitter with no problem too, but never has she been left in a strange place with strange people for an extended amount of time, so I was absolutely sick to my stomach about having to drop her off at school some day.

When we started looking at schools this past winter we knew that we wanted to get her in somewhere that had a summer program, so that she could get acclimated to the new school environment before the new baby comes in August. We found a lovely private pre-school (I guess they are all private at that age, no?) only a few minutes away from our house, that reminded me of Sunnyside Day Care from Toy Story 3 so I was sold from the first visit. They offered a 7 week summer program to ages 2.7+ so we signed her up immediately and set the start date (a week later than the other kids due to vacation last week) as this past Tuesday.

I think it was about 3 months ago that I started losing sleep over the fact that my baby would be going to "school" in a few months. How was my child, my little sidekick, going to react to being dropped off in a strange place for 4 hours, 3 days a week? I have a hard enough time getting her 2 year old self to listen to me, how is she going to listen to her teachers? How the hell was I to prepare her for this? How the hell was I to prepare myself for this??