Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Instead of a PB & J...stick it to them...

One of my favorite books as a kid was Bread and Jam for Frances, the story of a little badger who was very picky about her food and was forced (when her parents granted her wish...) to eat bread and jam every meal. Frances soon tired of her favorite snack and tucked into a proper meal with her family.

I think I liked it so much because I was a very picky eater and wished that my parents would let me just eat one thing that was something I really enjoyed...like oatmeal raisin cookies. Why am I telling you this? Well, some of us have picky kids who only like a very select group of foods, others have kids who really thrive on routine and don't want any surprises in their lunch and a few of us have grown-up lunchers in our house with special dietary restrictions or just plain favorite meals.

My oldest Little Luncher is on a kick where she (despite my best intentions) wants to have the same lunch over and over and over and over.........so what can I do? For one, I give myself a break and make "that" lunch for her at least two days of the week, makes my morning easier honestly. Secondly, I look for small changes to make - vanilla yogurt with sprinkles instead of strawberry yogurt, Baby Bel cheese instead of cubed cheddar, carrot sticks instead of pretzels. The sticking point has become her PB & J. She flatly refuses to eat any other traditional looking sandwich (I know in another two months this will change) so out come the pita & hummus, the cheese & fruit skewers, quesadillas and even the occasional bagel and cream cheese.

Magically...she will eat any of these things so, I asked people to share on the Little Lunches Facebook Page, their skewer tips here are a few great ones:

Mama Kamola - I use swizzle sticks and mostly skewer fruit. Sometimes I stick a few mini marshmallows in as a treat. I will have to give Turkey meatballs a try though.
Muffin Tin Mama - Fruit is a favorite, sometimes meat and cheese, occasionally veggies, but their faves aren't soft enough to skewer. I usually use regular plastic skewers/picks or drink stirrers.
Another Lunch Mama - I've used pretzel sticks for cheese occasionally - that reminds me, LOL, back when I had only one child (and obviously a LOT more free time!) I used to very gently work Cheerios onto pretzel sticks. It was slow and tedious to get the the Cheerios on there without breaking, but my son loved it. These days I'll skewer just about anything on little food picks and swizzle sticks.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

What is your "panic" lunch?

Last week was a little crazy around our house - the shorter week, a couple of unplanned but non-emergency doctor's visits, two after work meetings...and somehow the grocery store just didn't figure into the mix. Since it is early in the school year there were a whole lot of back-ups on hand...our Little Luncher did get her lunch on Thursday but it was not the lunch I had planned...so I was wondering...what do you do in that situation? Her school doesn't offer a hot lunch option and so I found myself at the grocery store at 6:15 am before everyone else was awake.

I grabbed two of those Horizon Organic single serving milks, a yogurt, packaged baby carrots, a couple of prepackaged slices of cheddar, a bag of those tiny boxes of raisins and a carton of strawberries. Those items and a nice PB & H(oney) and she was set for the day. Granted, I didn't feel great about all that packaging but I did feel good about what was inside.