Kid Lunch Prep

Mornings in my house are a bit crazy with two adults and three kids ages eight and under.  Thankfully the older two can get themselves fully dressed--the three-year-old needs some assistance still--but we still have to monitor their clothing choices each day.  Some weeks we've managed to plan ahead where we lay out outfits the night before, or even a few days at a time, but it just doesn't stick.

Lunch is another situation.  I'm so blessed to have a husband who is a very hands-on helper with the kids.  While I monitor clothing, he typically is getting lunches ready and breakfast on the table for the kids.  So even though we share the load, I've felt like there has to be a better way (for us) to do things.  Well, I think I maybe found it.  Since we are big on having our kids do things for themselves, packing their lunches seemed a logical next step.  However, I had visions of a lunchbox full of granola bars or a couple Gogurts with three fruit cups.  Not exactly healthy lunches.  To combat this, I took five baskets we already had and labeled them: fruit, carbs, dairy, veggies, and meat.  The first three also had a label that said "Choose 1" while the label on the last two said "Choose 1-2."  Then we filled the baskets this weekend with enough items to last the week.  We went through quite a few plastic sandwich baggies, so I intend to buy snack size baggies as well as more reusable containers that we can refill week after week.  That'll cut down on the trash being thrown away, but I wanted to use up what we had on hand without this project being a costly one.

Today was the first day using the new system, and I feel it went really well.  I walked through the process with them to make sure they did it right even though they're smart enough to do it without extra supervision--they understood the directions because we talked about it this weekend as they were filling the baggies with food servings.  Tomorrow I probably won't walk beside them as they pack their lunches, but scaffolding is a good thing, right?  :D