bento beginnings

Maribel had her first full week of Bento lunches and I have to say I am getting faster-ish at making them. I found that if I make her lunches the night before that really cuts down our morning time hustle. I’m all about less stress these days. 

Friday 

Last Friday: I finally got a chance to try out the cute egg molds and I like it. I made this lunch Thursday night for Friday's lunchtime so that I had enough time for the eggs to cool off in the little molds. It worked great!!

Bunny egg mold

At lunch time, Miss Patty (her daycare teacher) opened it up and set it out for Maribel. Because the egg was very "egg" smelling, Maribel leaned into her lunch and took a couple wiffs, then leaned back for an assessment. She leaned in again for a couple more sniffs and leaned back again and said very serious like, "I think it's dead."
*sigh* That's my girl.

sorry, no photo :o(
Monday: I cheaped out and just rolled up some lunch meat and used the food picks and I used a cute bear mini cookie cutter to cut out a fruit leather. I stacked the bears and set them aside to put everything else together and when I went to add the bears I noticed they were gone. Maribel was standing there with some full cheeks so I asked her where the bears went. She just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. Little sneak. I didn't add any "dead" things this time and everything else was prepackaged stuff so no photo. It was boring.

in a rush so *again*, no photo. sorry :o(
Tuesday: I hadn't learned my lesson from yesterday to make her lunch the night before so I scrambled to make her lunch and head out the door on time. Tuesday's lunch consisted of little chicks cheddar crackers, drinkable applesauce, turkey rolls on picks, cereal breakfast bar, elephant punched fruit leather and a yogurt. I also added a sliced Kiwi for the first time and I was so happy she likes Kiwi. She has such a picky pallet these days.

 Wednesday

Wednesday: I felt creative and punched out several little guys from a fruit leather and used the butterfly punch for the peanut butter and honey sandwich. I wasted nothing on the fruit leather and punched as many little circles as I could get to decorate the sandwich and the cheese. I tried making a little crab from the cheese but it ended up looking like whiskers to me. So whiskers it was. Does it look like whiskers to you? yeah, me neither. Nummy grapes, cute up breakfast bar, and of course some rolled up turkey meat. Her fave. 


Bad Mom Award. No Bento :'o(
Thursday: No lunch because I am a negligent monster. I stayed up so late preparing for my office Multicultural day and I forgot to make her lunch; then woke up late and had to rush out the door. I know, I know. I'm a terrible mom. Poor thing was so sad she didn't have a lunch. When I came home Joe told me that Maribel cried when it was lunch time because "Mommy didn't make my lunch!" It broke my heart and I felt even worse!! 

Friday

Friday: She has daycare all day today instead of her usual half days so I packed a phatty one to include snacks along with lunch. Notice I used a "ph" instead of an "f" to be sure that I'm not mistaken for packing a high FAT lunch. Not that it matters too much as she's a ball of energy and would burn it off after 5 minutes of play. Oh to have that energy... Her lunch includes peanut sanny's, bunny fruit leathers, yogurt, grapes, Juice Plus gummies, Kiwi (this is new and she loves it. Yay!!) and roasted leftover turkey roast.

To ensure success I ask Maribel what she liked in her lunch that day and I try to add variety for the opportunity to try new things. If she doesn’t like something I won’t add it again. I'm really enjoying making these little lunches especially when she likes them! I hope to get more creative and daring and try some molded rice sculptures. I just want to make sure M will eat them before I go through all the effort. She loves rice but after the hard boiled egg incident I'm not going to risk her not trying something that I know she likes.

Happy Friday!!
 >^..^<