i have extremely little to offer for today’s NaBloPoMo prompt, “What is/was your favourite thing to pack for school lunch?”
as a child, i mostly ate school lunches. until i got to high school, when i mostly bought a Diet Coke, chewed some gum and saved my lunch money for cigarettes and Chanel lipsticks. it was the 80s when you could still buy a Diet Coke in a school vending machine, y’all.
as a mom, i see a homemade lunch as a treat. once or twice a week, Miss Girl gets a completely unfancy ham and swiss sandwich on a multi-grain Sandwich Thin and some combination of yogurt, grapes, strawberries, applesauce, fruit snacks, ice water in her Minions thermos (partly because she should drink more water and partly because i don’t trust the ice packs to keep everything cold) and maybe a cookie. it is not cute, y’all. it is all in Ziplocks and random Tupperware. the best thing i do for my daughter’s lunch is draw on her napkin. today, just for the snack she carries, i drew Beethoven in Sharpie and i’m totally pissed i didn’t think to take a picture because it actually kind of rocked!
anyway, all that said, there was a brief moment in time when i had a fantasy that i could be that mom who made precious bento boxes for school lunches. i would have multiple sets of nesting, divided BPA-free containers. i would have themes and characters. i would Instagram every adorable creation. and then i remembered who i am: the mom that can barely get up and get her out the door in the morning with a non-gourmet, non-grass-fed ham (do they even grass feed pigs? that’s how much i don’t even know!) sandwich in a Ziplock bag. i’ve read several articles about the pressure to perform in this area over the past couple years. and while i’m glad i’m not alone, i’m also so over caring. and guess what. Miss Girl certainly doesn’t.
so instead of my favorite, boring thing to pack for lunch, may i present a selection of ridiculous items i will never be packing for lunch. (and obvs, “ridiculous” is code for “omg, i am so totally jealous and have the utmost respect for anybody who actually makes these things!”) see the full collection here and even more here. what is your favorite school lunch?
1. Winnie the Pooh Bento see image above. really? if you link through to the Mothering Corner post, you’ll see words like “Kuromi” and “15 minutes preparation time”. it’s all Japanese to me . . .
2. Little Olympians Bento
i mean. 10 for effort and 10 for execution! also probably like 10 hours of my life i would never get back if i even attempted something this elaborate. sigh.
3. Hello Kitty Bento
oh, it’s only a pizzawich disguised as a perfect Hello Kitty. with flowers and fruit atop broccolini bushes. pure evil. clearly.
4. Circus Animal Bento
aka “6 elephants in my box” or, um . . . anyway, this one actually includes pre-bought elephant toothpicks. i totally always have those on hand. not.
5. Old McDonald Bento
sheep and chickens and pigs, oh my! so many accoutrements here, y’all. maaaaaayyybe if i had stuff left over from a party, but come on.