Bentos for 8/27-8/31

Here are the bento boxes I made for Little Honey this week. I'm trying really hard to stay on it for now since I know that as soon as Baby B is born, my bento making may suffer! Hubby did volunteer to be the substitute bento-maker on days when I'm too tired, but I really do hope I can keep this up even after baby gets here. As a friend of mine put it, these bentos are like my edible love notes to her. I love seeing that smile when I show them to her every morning before school. I cherish the little laughs we share when she talks about how funny or cute they are. She really is a special little girl and if an animal shaped musubi will make her feel that way, then pass me the nori and rice!

• Scrambled egg, chick-shaped musubi, chicken katsu, green beans&corn & baby carrots.
• Green beans, bean sprouts, chop chae (Korean long-rice), panda-shaped musubi & Korean bbq chicken.
• Pretzels, chicken nuggets&ketchup, baby carrots, olives & pickles.
• "Mrs. Yummy Bento"(she came up with this name): clementine, cucumber, baby carrots, face-shaped musubi with a side-bun and hair picks & teriyaki beef katsu.
• Clementine, unsweetened dried cranberries, spam roll & green beans&corn.

Sick Day

Our daughter woke me up in the wee hours of the morning with all her fidgeting (yes, we're co-sleepers... so sue me). I went to touch her forehead and she felt pretty warm. We took her temperature and sure enough, she had a fever. Every time this has happened before, no big deal. Wake up, make her a glass of ice-cold water. Maybe a couple tablets of baby tylenol, back to bed. Now that she's in preschool, however, it became way more of an ordeal.

Is she fighting off a bug? Did someone at school have the flu? Is this going to turn into something else? Should we keep her home from school tomorrow? I found myself googling things I'd never googled before: "Should I keep my preschooler home due to fever?", "How to deal with more exposure to germs in preschool.", "Am I the only moron who needs to google these things?", etc.Turns out, the answers were basically: yes, get over it, and no.

I'd never spent so much time fussing over a low-grade fever before. For the past three years, I've only had to think about her and how to make her feel better. Now I have to think about the well-being of her classmates, too! That's new. I decided it'd be best to keep her home. She woke up with a pretty low-grade fever, but I wasn't sure if all the excitement at school would cause it to flare up again (and I definitely didn't want to be responsible for getting any other children sick). I told her a little fib because I know how much she looks forward to preschool. I said that there was no school instead of saying she needed to stay home(terrible, I know!). Her papa almost blew my cover when he came to visit... "Hi honey bunny! Are you feeling okay? I heard you had to stay home from school today." (I was sitting behind her, shaking my head and feverishly mouthing NO NO NO!) "Ummmmm... because it's a vacation day!!!! Right??" Good save, dad.

We made art, relaxed in bed, and got some things ready for the baby (she's an excellent helper). She ate lots of cold, fresh fruit and drank lots of water and some watered down juice. She also had a popsicle free for all, really milking her supposed illness. "Mommy, I feel like I'm getting warm again. I think I need another popsicle because that will make my fever go away." This kid. It's not like I haven't had her at home with me pretty much EVERY DAY since she was born, but keeping her home and spending time with her when she was supposed to be at school felt like such a little treat! Her first sick day. Wow, my kid stayed home sick from school. I can't believe how fast she's growing up. I'm sure that some day, in the not too distant future, she will be lying to me about being sick and needing to stay home as opposed to me needing to lie to her about there being vacation in order to get her to stay home with me. Maybe not, but if she's anything like I was (and she is proving to be a little mini of this sassy mama), then it'll happen.

Side-note: Here are some featured bentos from the school week of 8/20-8/24.

 

•  Mini bear & flower-shaped cream cheese&strawberry preserves sandwiches, string cheese, craisins, baby carrots, bear-shaped cucumbers & strawberry chobani greek yogurt
• imitation crab&furikake sushi rolls, peach chobani greek yogurt, edamame & baby carrots.
• heart-shaped boiled egg, teriyaki meatballs, bear & flower-shaped musubi, edamame & craisins.

Bento Mento

So, as mentioned briefly in my previous post... I have been doing a lot of bento'ing (that's a word, right?). My big girl started preschool this month and in anticipation of her being extremely clingy and not wanting to separate (as I've heard many only children can be when they first go to school), I decided I wanted to do something cute and fun for her to get her hyped up about it. Game plan: bento box lunches. I bought all these cute little accessories (check out amazon, I swear you can buy ANYTHING on that site) and bento boxes to make her food look girly and exciting. I practiced the week before school started and she LOVED them. She usually eats like a bird, but with the bento boxes, she'd actually sit there and eat almost all of her food! Any of you who have toddlers may know what a big deal that is! She said to me, "Cute food tastes better." HA!

Here are the sample bento boxes we made at home in the days before school started.

1. bear&flower-shaped rice balls, chicken nuggets, soybeans, tofu & strawberries

2. heart-shaped spam musubi, deviled egg, baby carrots, pears & blueberries

3. ham&cheese rolls, baby carrots, clementine & flower-shaped cucumbers

4. flower-shaped cheese quesadillas, chicken nuggets, soybeans & ranch dip

5. teriyaki meatballs, string cheese, heart&butterfly-shaped cucumbers & fuji apple

So then school starts. I'm totally geared up for a complete display of devastation. I'm all ready to be emotionally damaged and see my baby girl scream bloody murder because she's just not ready to be away from home. WRONG! Turns out, she LOVES school! She has only cried one time, and that was because she didn't want to LEAVE school. She wakes up ready for her day and so excited to go "see her friends" and "talk to her aunties(teachers)." I think it was seriously harder on me than it was on her! Seeing how independent she is becoming just after two short weeks of school makes me so PROUD (a little bit sad, empty & dead inside, but mostly so PROUD). I do miss her throughout the day, but I always look forward to seeing her light up when she tells me how much fun she's had. 

Anyway, so far, she's had three home-lunches. Next week starts every day home-lunch. Here's what we made so far. I need to start waking up early, because bentos made at 7am in 5 minutes or less just don't look as cute! I'll work on that. :)

August 10th: grapes, clementine, ham&cheese rolls, flower-shaped cucumber, 

string cheese, taro bread &milk

August 14th: rice w/furikake & teriyaki meatballs in her HK thermos, grapes, blueberries 

& edamame in her bento box

August 16th: hear-shaped crab/cream cheese sushi w/extra crab, watermelon jello w/peaches, 

blueberries, baby carrots & flower-shaped cucumbers

If you're thinking about making bentos for your kids, my VIP bento aid would definitely have to be cookie cutters. Oh, and re-useable silicone baking cups. Those two things and some tupperware, you're good to go!

In other non-bento related news: I'm in my 9th month of pregnancy. WHAAAAAAT????