Mommy Bento Love

I first saw a photo of a Bento box in a parenting magazine when I was newly pregnant. It made me wish for a  live-in Japanese mother who could pack me an adorable lunch every day. Since that wasn't possible, I splurged and bought myself a Laptop Lunches box. When I was feeling frustrated by gestational diabetes, that lunch box went a long way to making lunch feel fun rather than like a carb-counting chore I had to do in between finger sticks.

And then I had babies. Babies who like to share a chair with me at meals. Babies who like to ask for another spoon, a paper towel, more milk, and on and on and on. In short, before I realized what was happening, I was in the habit of eating random stuff I could fit in between kid requests. A slice of sandwich bread here, a few crackers here, a cookie, the portion of banana I could sneak in before the kids started demanding the rest... as unbalanced and carb-loaded as it sounds here, I promise it was even worse in real life. And largely because I was doing such a bad job with midday eating, I found a little over five pounds over the course of the year. When you're itty bitty like me, five pounds shows. Everywhere and obviously. I'm ready to lose those five pounds.

So I'm back to the Mommy Bento box. Every night when the kids FINALLY go to sleep - even if it's 10:30 (or worse, sigh) - I pack a lunch for all three of us. It's a lot easier to make healthy, balanced choices for all of us when no one is whining or riding on my foot or throwing Legos over the baby gate into the laundry room.

Here's a recent Mommy lunch. I added some beets and balsamic dressing to the salad at lunch time. Beets, goat cheese, and balsamic is one of my absolute favorite winter combinations.

Here's a kid lunch I packed for a picnic recently. (Yogurt in the covered container. And that's puffed corn from Trader Joe's, not popcorn, which is a choking hazard for kids under 5. I have major fear of a popcorn choking.) 

The bento containers I use for the kids' lunches - Easy Lunchboxes. I had my doubts about them before I ordered them, but I love them even more than my Laptop Lunches box. With the silicon muffin cups and spill -resistant smaller containers, they're so versatile. And when we had our picnic recently, I was able to stack one for each of us in a small-ish backpack cooler from Target. So easy.

Bento boxes... because you're worth it.