Sunday night is when I used to start mumbling about the lunches I need to pack for the next 5 days. Aggh, I need to get the lunch box packed!
Its certainly not a hard tasking, and I only have one school-ager right now. All I need to accomplish is making a kid-friendly sandwich and rounding out the meal with healthy sides and a drink, but it is ALWAYS a pain. I didn’t really understand why this task drove me nuts until one night I realized it took me at least 15 minutes every school night to make a packed lunch. That is when I took matters in to my own hands.
I started prepping. Sunday night pull out five sandwich tubs, a loaf of bread, my peanut butter and jelly and a knife and I make all the weeks sandwiches.
Are your children into turkey and cheese sandwiches? You can do that too just hold off on any veggies. Alright, sandwiches are made. I stick four in the freezer. The fifth one is put in the lunch box for the next day’s use.
Then I get to the veggies. I prep my cucumbers, wash the tomatoes and place everything in small containers for use through out the week. Next I wash up five servings of fruits for lunches too. Keep in mind berries can’t be prepped too far ahead, but most other fruits will keep there freshness washed days in advance.
Lastly I bag the snacks. This week it was popcorn, all five bags are packed and done.
Then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I quickly grab a frozen sandwich, a already prepared container of veggies, washed fruit, box of milk and bag of snack and toss it into my child’s lunch box. It now takes less than 5 minute, really about 2-3 minutes to get the next day’s lunch ready now.
My son is going to start 2nd grade in the Fall and it will be a good time to transfer lunch making responsibility to him. He is going to help me prep his meals on Sunday and then box them up each night. Just another way to make packing lunches much simpler.
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