Photo credit: Lisa Storms

Let’s face it. Coming up with lunch ideas before you’ve downed your caffeine is a bit of a challenge. School is already back in session for some children, and making the transition from lazy mornings to organized chaos once again could go a little smoother if you prepare for it.

Personally, I’m all about doing things frugally while I feed my kids healthy, local food whenever I’m able. I don’t like to waste food, and with three of us in school (yes, me too), I rarely throw out food anymore.

Thomas’ Goodbyn loaded up one day in the winter.

Your best defense is a good offense.

When you bring home vegetables & fruit, wash and cut them up right away.  I find if I take the extra 15 minutes or so to do this, grabbing everything I need for lunch prep is super easy. When I have a lot of fruit on hand, I use a covered fruit tray and pull out the one container to stuff lunches.  Lots of veggies? Same thing – one container. My kids and I don’t care if our chopped bell peppers are touching our baby carrots.  And when dinner is running late, I throw the container on the table to stave off the whining, thereby tricking them into eating healthy.

Invest in a lunchkit.

My oldest (12) doesn’t care if his lunch comes in an insulated bag (in fact, he thinks the lunch kits are pretty uncool for a near teen), and he is old enough to poke through his lunch and not miss the good stuff. My youngest (now 7) took a Goodbyn to school last year and while the presentation was great, as he could see his entire lunch and ended up eating more of it, he couldn’t close the lid properly and I ended up cleaning out his backpack about twice a week because of spilled food.  We’re going to hang on to these for my lunch this year, and use it for car & beach trips and times when there’s an adult around to close it.

Photo credit: Barb Dean

This year, we are investing in a Planetbox, on the recommendation of my friend Barb.  She runs a Facebook group called Landon’s Lunches, where she posts pictures of well, Landon’s Lunches.  Barb shares tips and answers questions about her Planetbox, even though she doesn’t work for them. It’s great to see the different ideas she comes up with and I’ve happily stolen a few of her ideas for my guys. You can join here!

Make lunch the night before.

One of the things I did last year was make lunch the night before.  I’m told it’s great to put the whole Planetbox in the fridge. In the morning, the metal kit is cold and stays cold in the insulated bag until lunchtime rolls around. This saves time in the morning while dealing with the morning rush, and allow more time for finding those elusive library books or filling out the field trip forms on the last day they are due.

If you have time, get creative.

Photo source

You don’t have to create a bento box with an intricate sushi rice & meatball-formed monster dude (and a lettuce-wearing meat lady!), but you can add things to your kid’s lunch that he might try, especially without the pressure of Mom or Dad around.  Last year Thomas enjoyed turkey pepperoni, pita bread, and pineapple and loved them all.

There’s also no shortage of lunch ideas on the internet, if you’re willing to search. Laptop lunches and Pinterest (search “lunch”) are a good start.

Making lunches really doesn’t have to be the huge pain in the butt that it used to be. I find that having a lunch kit cuts down on time as well because you aren’t bagging every little snack and running around the kitchen trying to find everything.

Disclosure: even though this totally sounds like a sponsored post, it isn’t. I just found much less frustration last year by using a lunch kit and it only took me 12 years of parenting to get this part right. Now where are those stinking library books?

Thomas was in his room this afternoon, as I told him he had to tidy the floor before I made him a snack (it seriously would take 5 minutes – the kid wasn’t in there starving). Do your kids pull the “I’M HUNGRY” card when you ask them to do a chore?

UGH. My guys? Every time. Now I make them do the chore while I make the snack/meal – it tends to hustle them up, most of the time.

Not today, Zurg.

This note shot out from under Thomas’ bedroom door, into the hall:

This morning, after EIGHT frigging snow days in the last week & a half, the kids and I woke up late (of course) for the 2nd last day of school before Christmas holidays.

I didn’t bother rushing. I highly doubt the school had some major academics to shove down their throats before visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.

Nearly two hours late for school, we finally got our shit together and got ready in the front hall of the house.  I opened the door to the garage, hit the button to open it and was ATTACKED by what I thought was maybe a bat. Or a flying beaver. It was HUGE.

Needless to say, I had a heart attack on the spot while screaming my fool head off.  My screaming did not stop until the door was closed and we were safe in the front hall, all screaming at each other – though my kids were staring at me, wide-eyed, mouths open, emitting sounds that emulated my own screeching because they had no idea what the hell was wrong.

When I finally pulled myself together and shut my yap, I told the kids there was possibly a bird stuck in the garage.  By this time, the big garage door was open, so we crept out the front door of the house and peeked into the garage to search for the flying wildebeest.

I spotted the assailant right away, atop the highest shelves in the garage, panting wildly behind some chair-in-a-bag thingies we cart to soccer.  All I could see was a wing, going up and down quickly – I think the creature was having it’s own heart attack in my garage.

Sonofabitch.

Thankfully, my almost 12 year old manned-up way better than me and was more than willing to go into the garage, armed only with a sawed off broomstick.

I do not know why we have a sawed off broomstick in our garage.  The man-cave is perplexing.

My son was bound to get the poor thing out of our garage without harming it.  He tiptoed around my car, to were the bird was — and it was up very high — probably a good two feet above his head.

The 6 year old and I stood quietly by the side of the garage door, peeking in, little clouds of our breath hanging in the air.

My 12 year old got closer, closer, closer until he was standing next to the giant shelf, and he started tapping at the shelf to try to coax this thing out.

Nothing.

He went around to the other side of the shelf and tried from the other side. It flew out of it’s hiding spot — and directly into the top of the big garage door, smashing it’s stupid dumb head. It fell on top of my car, flew up into the ceiling and landed on another tall shelf on the side of the garage. Blood and feathers flew.

I heard myself screaming again.  What a pussy.

12 year old went straight for the shelf where the creature was at, tapped again and the stupid thing freaked out again, hit his head on the ceiling AGAIN, and landed on a box right in front of my car.

It was a dove.  A stupid, dumb dove.

I felt so sorry for it. Kind of. I’m really not a fan of birds, at all. Birds are odd and have eyes that pierce your soul.  I’m kind of afraid of soul-piercing birds and their eyes.

Clearly I have issues.

I decided the only way to get this little guy out was to remove my car from the garage so it would have more room to see to the outside and maybe not smash it’s head open again.

Here’s where I repeatedly peed my pants.  The only way to get inside my car was to get within 3 feet of this thing, and pray to The Great Canadian Heavenly Mooses (Meese?) that it wouldn’t fly at my head.  I had visions of opening my car door, ducking to avoid the flight pattern of the stupid dumb dove, and smashing my own pretty face on the car.  I have a really active imagination, and it usually ends up bloody in my head.  (Ask me sometime about my master bedroom closet that most definitely has ghosts in it, especially at bedtime.)

Anyway, me smashing my pretty face on the car door? That didn’t happen.

I instructed the kids to stay on the porch so I didn’t run over their little butts, and got in my car as quickly as a woman having 6 simultaneous heart attacks could.

I started the car and the bird didn’t move.  I could see his little head was bleeding.  Poor (stupid) baby.

I double checked that my spawn weren’t in the way, and slowly backed the car into the driveway.  The bird sat motionless, probably cursing me for having 2 concussions and a bloody head. Stupid dumb human.

12 year old waited for me to resume my post beside the garage door before he went in.  His plan was to pick the bird up in his gloves and bring it outside, if it would let him.

It didn’t.

He got within a foot or two, and it flew out in seconds, up into the sky and into some nearby trees.

I hope it’s going to be okay. I also hope it tells all it’s stupid, dumb, bird-brained friends to avoid my house.

Me on the other hand? I’ll be packing a BB gun and some nitroglycerin next time I open that garage door.