I’ll Be Blue. . . .

Sorry, but I’ve been a bit blue lately-blame it on hormones or something. But I haven’t felt much like blogging for the last week or so (as my loyal readers can undoubtably tell). And like anything else, once you stop for a bit it can be hard to get back going. So I thought to give me a little jumpstart I’d start a new little daily feature-the Princess Lunchbox Report.

I know, I know, it sounds almost too exciting to bear doesn’t it? I figured this would serve 3 purposes. . . . #1-It may help some other folks with some ideas for some good, nutritious things to put in the lunchbox, be it for themselves, the significant other, or the kiddos. #2-It will help keep me from getting too repetitive with her lunches. If I know I am going to be reporting it, then I will be less likely to give her bologna and cheese 4 days in a row 🙂 and #3-it will give me at least a little something to say every day. Hopefully most days I’ll have even more to add in an additional post.

Here’s today’s lunch!

1 strawberry/bannana yogurt (for her breakfast snack)
Tomato Soup made with Skim Milk
4 Ritz type crackers
canteloupe (in a small tupperware container-equivalent of one small slice)
baby carrots
ranch dressing
1 slice american cheese (she didn’t want the cheese stick, swore she wouldn’t eat it but was thrilled with the idea of a slice of cheese. Like there is a big difference or something. Oh well, slice cheese is cheaper anyway, I just have the string cheese sticks left over from a trip)
Thermos of Kool-aid

School lunch costs $1.45 a day plus $.30 for milk. Breakfast, if bought, would be $.80 and another $.30 for milk. I’m not sure exactly how much my homemade lunch costs, but I’d bet it rings in less than that. Plus, I know exactly what she is eating and can increase the fiber and protien and lower the sugar (especially since frequently the things I’m sending in will be items I’ve cooked from scratch.)

So far I’ve had good luck training the classroom aides to send back the zipper baggies and the uneaten food (minus the yogurt-too messy). For the most part I just want to get a good idea of how much she has eaten. That way if she ate it all and says she was still hungry I’ll know to pack more. The extra bonus is that most days she’s been happy to finish off her crackers and fruit etc as an after school lunch, so we haven’t even wasted the food!

I know some of you are probably wondering why I don’t just ASK Princess if she had enough to eat. Well, this is the kid who came home last week and SWORE that the story they were read that day in class was about a frog who got hit with a stick and died, and then they took him to the emergency room and cut out his heart. . . . yeah, I’m sure that is exactly the sort of thing that our school system is reading to 5 year olds!! I finally got her to admit that maybe it was a bit of a madeup story, but then she proceeded to try to convince me that there was a girl in her class named “Miss Muffett”. 🙂 All of this is to say that when you are asking an imaginative, creative 5 year old a question, it may be best to get a bit of independant verification of the answer.