Wasteful Lunch

No pictures today.  No bento.  The big boys came home with their field trip flyer with instructions for only a "sack lunch."  Rich pulled out an old lunch bag of ours to use and I laughed.  I had to explain to him that "sack lunch" meant something to trash like paper and baggies.  It's so funny how our normal now is to reduce, reuse, recycle and any idea to use something tossable is so foreign!  But that's a good thing.

I did use my Pampered Chef pocket sandwich maker for some PBJ and drew a Jack O 'Lantern face and then stuffed it in a sandwich bag.  I tossed some Wheat Thin sticks in a sandwich bag too.  My clementines were peeled and tossed with some grapes and while it was a whole lot quicker, it felt awful and awkward.  I had no joy this morning with lunch making.  I threw everything into the brown bag and closed it with a sticker, but still just nothing.

So I guess bento making isn't really about my kids as much as I thought. It's my morning latte that gets my creativity flowing.  Sometimes making lunches gives me a giggle when I think of a particularly clever idea.  It's also fun to imagine the joy my boys feel opening the Laptop Lunch box.  That thought fills me for the day because I can't control anything that happens at school.  If Jack gets his feelings hurt, I can't be there to give him a hug.  If Riley gets an A on his math test, I'm not there right away to give him a high five.  But my lunches are there whispering words of love and encouragement right in the middle of the day.  If the lunches could talk they'd say, I see you and I value you.

It reminds me of the feelings I had when Jack was born early and had to be in the special nursery with the oxygen hood and wires all around him.  I just stared at him and touched him and worried about him.  When they gave me the breast pump, it gave me something to do.  It made me feel empowered that I wasn't completely useless to him.  If I could pump and produce enough milk, that could help him get out of the nursery sooner.  So it was with his nutrition then that demonstrated my love, so it is now when I make the silly lunches.