Way way back before Zach and Scarlet were teens I had this great idea to make my own homemade versions of their favorite restaurant lunches and freeze them ahead of time (blog post here). I had a “menu” they could select from the night before and it was fun and healthy with minimal packaging waste. Eventually though they wanted to do more hot lunches at school and simpler sandwiches and the homemade ones seemed to come home largely uneaten. I remember feeling defeated but succumbed to the convenience of things such as uncrustables and individually prepackaged snacks because that’s what kids ultimately like right? Fast forward to this summer and my amazing now teenaged daughter Scarlet started planning make ahead freezer lunches for herself and her sisters complete with menus and meal plans (for the record Zach still prefers the pizza at High School). I asked her why she was planning ahead so early for school lunches and shouldn’t we see what the hot lunch program would be at their new school first? She looked horrified and said she really liked when I used to do their lunches this way and missed it and she wanted to have the little girls experience special homemade lunches with complete meal plans. My heart exploded!! All this time I felt that my efforts had gone unnoticed when they had truly planted seeds. Lesson learned for me: Even if things don’t seem obviously Pinterest worthy, easy, perfect, appreciated, organized, etc. etc. DON’T STOP TRYING! I can’t say how much this has affected and reinvigorated my view of parenting and inspired some very positive changes. Making the effort means more to them than the act itself and as long as you continually care and try they really do appreciate it (even if some of their lunches turn into science experiments in their backpacks and they complain about getting extra veggies). So we got to work printing out a weekly menu and Scarlet assembled and froze 40 lunches!! Did I mention she’s amazing?? We recently learned Scarlet has celiac so she needs to avoid gluten but that didn’t stop her from assembling and freezing gluten free waffle pizzas and burritos with homemade tortillas. For the little sisters she froze homemade whole grain pancakes, quesadillas and uncrustables (the trick with those is to put peanut butter on both sides of the bread and the jelly in the middle so it doesn’t get soggy).
Here is our weekly plan for each girl:
Scarlet:
Frankie:
Alexis:
It didn’t stop there either. Once we were making lists the lists kept coming. Morning routine! Evening routine! Family dinner plan (post on that coming soon)! All things I used to do that went by the wayside one way or another due to stress and or convenience. In reality though I can honestly say that after a couple weeks of school these lists are saving my sanity so the extra effort pays off. My family likes them too and Alexis even told her teacher she was looking forward to dinner last Friday because “Friday was homemade pizza night”! So welcome to fall and school and happy chaos because no matter how organized you are there will still be a little happy chaos. At least that’s the case in our household with four children, six dogs, seven cats, loads of poultry and a horse (of course) and we are a-ok with that. Speaking of which how hilarious is this before and after first day of pre-k picture of Alexis? Happy Fall!
KeatonFamilyTies 