Beyond Bologna: Getting Organized for Back-to-School Lunch Success

Four days.

That’s how many days of summer we have left.

FOUR.

Four days until I have to drag The Dudes kicking and screaming from their cozy beds at a time that is perfectly reasonable when all you have to do is get up and watch cartoons in your undies, but will suddenly become ridiculous and ungodly when you have to dress yourself and go out into the world.

Four days until the homework demon comes to claim me.  And the healthy lunch recipes need to be rolled out with the paper, pencils, and 10 glue sticks?  10?  Really?

Four days until coffee before 8am will not only be enjoyable, but a requirement in order to sustain human life.

Four days until drop off, and pick up, and carpool, and PTA meetings, and all of the random sorts of nutty that come with elementary school pop off up in here.

Four.  Days.

Clearly, we are not looking forward to it.

My Dudes are not the we-want-to-go-back-t0-school-because-we-are-bored-and-we-miss-our-friends sort.

They see their friends every day.

They live on the street.  They swim on their swim team.  They see them at the lake.

They never have the opportunity to miss their friends in the summer.

So school is not really the social excitement for them that it often is for other children.

And, me?

No, I’m not going to miss them per se.

But, I will miss spending every morning in my ratty jammies since the start of school pretty much means I’m not gonna be able to do that anymore.

So boo for that.

But, just like every life change, we are prepared for it; theoretically at least.

And, thanks to the Beyond Bologna Lunch Challenge I’m co-hosting, The Dudes should have something reasonable to eat even the very first day.

They tell me, it’s all about being organized.  But, since organization is not exactly, um, my bag, I’ve decided to crawl take baby steps to success.

Which basically means that I don’t have a list of tips for getting organized.  Or a printable to help you focus.

I have ONE tip.

The single best thing that I do to ensure that my children don’t go to school and eat the you-for-got-your-lunch-sack free pBj sandwich is meal plan.

Meal plan early, and meal plan completely.

Lay out your week (or two weeks if you’re a bimonthly shopping family like us), and ensure that you have a schedule of what your children will be doing for lunch everyday.

I even put it in my phone.  On my calendar.

The Dudes like to buy lunch on chicken nugget day.

Usually that is once a week at our school.

So, I put that in the phone, and plan the rest of their meals for the week.

If I’m feeling really ambitious, I make a printable weekly lunch menu so they can see too.

Pretty much I only feel this ambitious the first two weeks of school, but sometimes that’s all the time we need to get into the routine.

This is the first day’s lunch…

• Turkey & cheese mini sandwiches on Udi’s gluten free bread
• Watermelon
• Bean & corn salsa, aka Fiesta Salad, because it’s a party in your mouth (recipe below)
• Tortilla chips (often I make my own and let the eat the for a few days, but this was a lazy summer day so I didn’t)

And yes, we really do use those eco friendly container thingys for school days too because we’re Eco-gangsters, remember.

I try to send them both with the same thing (ease of prep, duh) everyday, but sometimes, especially when I’m getting low on gluten free snackage and breads, I will send #1 with something else so that I can reserve the gluten free stuff for the kid that doesn’t eat gluten.

The black bean salsa is seriously one of their favorite edible things, which rocks because it is so very easy to make…

1 can black beans

1 bag frozen corn (do canned if you want)

1 can diced tomatoes with chiles

1 sprig cilantro, diced (or a teaspoon of the kind in the jar)

1 diced jalapeno (if you like it spicy)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:  Dump all that mess in a bowl and grub.  If you do it the night before and refrigerate it, it will be even tastier the next day(tomatoes just taste better when they get time to sit).

Have you missed out on the other great ideas this week?!

Feel free to check out Sharon’s Cold Sesame Noodles recipe, Angie’s homemade fruit roll-ups recipe, and Nicole’s Turkey and ham wraps.  Elaine will be up tomorrow to finish out the week!

Do you have a go-to lunch item your kids love to eat?!  Please share, you know I’m sunk after the two week mark!