Our version of Laptop Lunches

A friend of mine introduced the idea of laptop lunches to me awhile back. With 4 children, it became challenging responding to her children's needs for snack time, lunch time, and snack time again. To resolve her problem, she lays out food after breakfast and each of her 4 children assemble their lunches/snacks in their laptop lunchboxes and she "closes" the kitchen until dinnertime.

I didn't realize how valuable this method could be with my 3 children (which will become 4 in October) until they began rotating through the kitchen constantly asking for a snack, lunch, etc. I'm beginning to feel as if we spend all of our time in the kitchen so I've decided to follow my friend's solution.

Laptop lunch boxes are rather pricey, but I did buy one at a local bookstore to see whether they are worth the price. I like them, but upon wandering through my local store I found a couple of lunch boxes that would allow me to organize their food in a similar fashion, but much less expensive.

One of them is by California Innovations and I bought it at Wal-Mart for less than $10. It has a hard insert inside with a divider in the middle; the insert can be removed to wash and the divider has two different slots. The rubbermaid small square tupperware fits nicely (there are 2 sizes--shallow and deep) and was only $2 for a 4 count package. Both girls have tupperware with their names on them to keep track and every few days we'll cut up fruits and veggies to put in the tupperware to easily pop into the lunch boxes.

At 3 and 5, the girls are now responsible for their own lunchboxes. I'll set out the choices each day so they can pack it in their box: 1 vegetable, 1 fruit, 1 main food (pasta choice, ab & j, taco, other sandwich, etc) and they are responsible for their box all day. They can eat anything in their box (and I pack enough to get through afternoon snack) and the kitchen is closed until dinner.

I haven't practiced this every day so far, but the days that I have, it's worked really well. Maisie ate all of her carrots and cucumber and fruit and didn't once bug me about being hungry the other day...it was wonderful!

Most of all, it ensures that I don't get "lazy" and let the kids snack on too many carbs (pretzels and crackers) and not enough veggies and fruit. This way, we can all keep track of our daily nutritional balance.

Look forward to pictures soon! The kids decorated their own lunch boxes.