Wednesday, August 19, 2009

School lunch. Yes this is a boring title, but I'm not feeling incredibly clever today.

As of today, I have less than one week to enjoy sleeping in.
I have been blessed with 4 wonderful kids who all love to sleep in as much as I do. They all got their father's height, good looks and intelligence, however, they take after me in their ability to stay awake until all hours of the night and their love of sleeping in until the crack of noon.

And I couldn't be happier :0)

We have less than one week until CJ starts school, then I need to start getting up early again :P
(Max goes back to preschool next week too, but that doesn't really count because he has afternoon class)
Normally Brielle and Aaron would have gone back to school at the end of July, however, this year we've changed schools and they get 8 weeks off of school! (which means 8 weeks of sleep in time for me)

We do, however, have one problem. The school that Brielle and Aaron will be attending doesn't provide school lunch, which means that if they want to eat lunch, we actually have to send it with them, which means that somebody will need to fix it for them.

In the morning.

Before school.

Which means that someone will need to get up earlier to do this. (I predict that there will be days when I just take them to school then drop off their lunch to them later)

Last school year, the kids decided that they liked lunch from home better than the hot lunch at school. Apparently, the schools grilled cheese sandwiches came in a sealed bag that said "hot off the grill" which is interesting because they showed up in a SEALED PLASTIC BAG!" Perhaps they were hot off the grill right before they froze and packaged them.
The school would send home a lunch menu for the month and the kids could decide which days they wanted to eat at school and which days they didn't want to.
This worked out well because if they didn't feel like making lunch (yes I made them make their own lunches! It builds character!) then they could just eat whatever was being served in the cafeteria.
For a while peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were sufficient, however, they got old after a while, and the kids got creative in their lunch choices. We bought them each a thermos so they could take hot soup or noodles or whatever, but I think the best one was when Brielle took cereal for lunch.

You heard me right, cereal. (She took a quarter too so she could buy milk)

But wait, there's more!

She didn't want to eat just cereal, that would be boring, she took a large bottle of strawberry ice cream syrup to pour over her cereal!

I didn't know about this until that night when I was cleaning out her lunch box and pulled out this huge bottle of syrup. I can only imagine what the lunch teachers were thinking.

So basically, this year we are faced with a problem. What to fix for lunch.
For a whole school year.
Every day.

We've been trying to come up with some new ideas for what these kids can eat for lunch. We'll start out with the PB&J until they cant stand it anymore, but I'm thinking we're going to need some other ideas.

I would be grateful for any suggestions.

20 comments:

Valerie said...

Hmmm, ham & cheese and crackers, cheese sandwiches, quesadillas (just to mix it up a bit), those horrible - I mean horribly expensive Lunchables everyonceinawhile. We have a friend who does PB&J on tortillas and rolls it up. I guess that's it for now. Good luck with it!

Kristina P. said...

I had a friend in school who would bring crackers and one of these squeezy cheese cans to lunch, everyday. I was always so jealous of that squeezy cheese.

Oh, and I would be making all lunches the night before.

Unknown said...

Let me guess, it's a charter school :) At least the quality in education will make up for the lost sleep...

Jillene said...

Tortilla roll-ups?! With their favorite lunchmeat and cheese and a little ranch dressing.

rychelle said...

i've never heard of a school that doesn't offer lunch. weird.

i suggest steak, caviar and duck liver pate. you know, the usual.

rychelle said...

oh, and definately fix it the night before....

Jessica G. said...

Just wrap up whatever leftovers ya got. Kids aren't picky, right?
(and thanks for the post about lunches...reminded me I need to put money in Boo's school lunch account...)

Chief said...

Ok so I am on my fifth year of sack lunches. Do your kids have microwaves available? They have saved our butts! My kids pack their own lunches too and I make them do it the night before and put them in the fridge. We do pizza snacks, frozen mac n cheese, corndogs...whatever they can heat up quickly. As far as sandwiches, if they want to make them then so be it.

Joanna said...

Do your kids go to a charter or private school?

I went to a private school back in the day and we had to make our lunches, too. I think we did the lunchables thing quite often (you can get them at Sam's club for 5 for $5). Also, in the winter, we did the cup o' noodles (the classrooms had hot water pots for the students to use). The ole fallback was of course, PBJ. Or ham n cheese. Or tuna fish.

Trapped and Screaming said...

This is the first year of packing lunches for me. But I have been searching for ideas. Thus far I have come up with yogurt and hard boiled eggs. I know. Not very creative.

Suburban Correspondent said...

Yogurt, string cheese and crackers, egg salad, tuna salad, PBJ....that's all I can think of...oh, wait, lunch meat sandwiches...that's good enough. Make it easy on yourself by assigning a certain lunch to a certain day of the week. You lose less brain cells that way.

Jen said...

PB and Bananas. That's Elvis' favorite. Except he deep fried them. I used to eat it in tortillas for breakfast on my mission. It stuck with me really well. I lost the weight when I got home.

Tuna and sprouts is also a fave of mine in tortillas. Or tortillas and pepperoni and cheese and tomato sauce rolled. I'm noticing a theme here...

Anonymous said...

ha! not only does my kids school not have a lunch program but they don't have microwaves AND they have a peanut ban. we are very creative here in canada, i tell ya!
-plain jam or honey, egg salad, tuna, maple ham on a variety of grainy bases (tortillas, bagels, bread, croissant, pitas)
-salads (my kids love spinach salad so sometimes a mushroom/bacon one and sometimes a mandarin orange/strawberry one)
-soup heated in the morning served in a thermos
i know there's more but it's late and it's still summer holidays here for another 2 weeks so i don't really need to think about this just yet.

Bonnie the Boss said...

everyone took my ideas, no fair!
There is a reason I make my kids eat school lunch, I don't need the sress of all of that. You are a good woman!

Jenny P. said...

I will be making lunches this year too. Three lunches, everyday. Mostly because I can't afford six freakin dollars a day for three kids to eat school lunch everyday. That's thirty dollars a week!

I'm gonna make them the night before. Otherwise, it would never happen.

MamaHen Em said...

http://rdstrongmail1.com/track?type=click&mailingid=223000&messageid=90600&databaseid=204900&serial=1222911450&emailid=kathyrkc@yahoo.com&userid=264086&extra=keycode=&promokey=ERDI22938&execution_nbr=105&&&2019&&&http://www.rd.com/advice-and-know-how/back-to-school-lunch-recipes/article158075.html?trkid=ERDI22938-1

That giant link above? Is a link that my MIL sent me from reader's digest website. It contains NINE lunches to pack for your kids. Good luck!

Melissa said...

We've been doing lunches for awhile... and honestly? My kids make their own lunch! They don't make it - they don't eat. I keep little bags of chips, crackers, fruit snacks, applesauce, grapes, raisins, carrots, goldfish, and capri sun fruit drink stuff. Then they make their own sandwiches and grab at least two items and a drink. It has worked out really well... I also got some fun ideas from this article on the Family Fun site...
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/kids/feature/famf98lunchtogo/famf98lunchtogo.html

Staci K. said...

Well, I don't have any lunch suggestions as at my girl's high school apparently bringing lunch from home is social suicide. I do, however, have a story from back in their elementary school days when I was working 3rd shift. I would stay up when I got home to get the kids off to school and make their lunches. Mackenzie always asked for PB&J and Taylor was a bologna and yellow mustard girl. One day after school Mackenzie asked me why I made her that yucky sandwich today. I asked what was wrong with it and she said it was peanut butter and yellow mustard. Apparently Taylor enjoyed her bologna and jelly sandwich, because she never complained! :)

Damama T said...

Some of my favorite lunch quickies are diced ham or turkey, cubed cheese, and pecans all tossed in a suckerware bowl. Quick to prepare and easy to eat. Throw some crackers and fruit in the bag and it's a pretty well-balanced meal. Sort of like lunchables w/o all the sodium.

My weird sons liked cold corndogs, too. With lots of mustard!

I'd definitely require them to make their own.

Jo said...

If you want to feel totally inadequate, go to this link:
http://lunchinabox.net
I guess the moms in Japan get up at 5 to make sure their kids have the best lunches ever!