School Lunches

A big topic of conversation this week (at least with other kindergarten moms) has been school lunches. Buy or bring? I never really considered buying for Bella. First, she's so picky that there's probably no lunch that would go over well with her, and second, I would worry that having to go stand in line and get a lunch would be a little intimidating for her, and take up what little lunch time she has.

So, since she is such a picky eater, and she's not a big breakfast eater, I worry about lunches for her. Heck I've been worrying about lunches for months before school started. I came across the concept of "Bento" - and thought what the heck, I'll give it a try, kind of like a homemade lunchable. I took one look at these photos and suspected that it would be something that would work well with Bella. She appreciates things that are cutesy, and I like the idea of her just having to open up one box and having all her food right there ready to go - no extra time spent opening things (some of which I've learned she can't open on her own, that at preschool the teachers would open things for her). Plus it makes it cheaper to not be buying snack size versions of things or going through a box of ziplocs a month.

Well it was a HUGE hit with her. I didn't do anything elaborate - simply pulled out a few cookie cutters to cut things like her cheese and turkey into flowers or hearts, added a little decorative picks from my baking stash, and used things like little silicone baking cups to hold stuff in. I put in a few "dessert" items, like mini-marshmallows, or mini-oreos, which is pretty exciting as she's never had anything like that packed in her lunch. She loved it. Every morning she's peeking in the kitchen to see what's being put in her lunchbox, because I keep it a secret, which she also seems to like. It's nice that she just puts the lid back on when she's done eating, and what didn't get eaten returns home, so I get to see what she did and did not eat, and adjust accordingly.

So school week two begins tomorrow. I'm hoping things continue to go smoothly. Bella should meet the speech therapist this week to begin therapy for her velopharyngeal inadequacy. It's something that may require surgery, but we want to give speech therapy at least a good six months to see if we can improve her articulation. I hate the idea of having her undergo surgery, and I hate the idea of doing it to change her voice even more, so I'm hoping that we can make some good progress via speech therapy. It's hard when people don't understand her, and I see how frustrated she get repeating things for people. We are starting to notice other kids picking up on it, and we don't want it to become something that she's made fun of for or feels insecure about. So fingers crossed that therapy can at least improve the situation. :)