So the other day I stayed after I volunteered in kidlets classroom long enough to see him go to lunch.  Boy, he gives his lunch a beating. He swings his bag around, slams it down. It spends as much time upside down as it does right side up.  Because I send his bento in a standard kids insulated lunch pail, when he carries it by the handle the bento is on it’s side. Knowing this, I always orient the box so that when he carries the pail the heavier / sturdier foods will be on the bottom. It’s normally held in place by the ice pack, water bottle and his dressing container so there isn’t much rattling around.  I considered a larger, boxier pail that had a shoulder strap that would keep the bento right side down during transport, but seeing how he flings it all over, I suspect that would be worse since there would be rattling around room.

 

I’d thought that Thursday’s lunch was well and tightly packed. Aside from a couple of sweet potato leaves that I left on top to look pretty (and those moving around a little shouldn’t matter I figured), everything was wedged in. The cheese was held down by the lid, the veggies underneath strong enough to take that pressure.

 

When he opened his lunch though, everything was shifted. The raspberries were smushed a bit. The acorn sandwich didn’t quite look like an acorn.  Everything was still mostly in place and everything was edible, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as when I packed it.  This didn’t have any loose small items in a cup (like corn or peas) but I suspect they would have been all over the place if it had.

 

It makes me wonder about some of the lunches I see on flickr, especially the laptop lunches. The foods might not mix together because of the separate containers, but you just know each container will be all jumbled because while all the containers are tightly packed, the food in each one usually isn’t. Some of them look nice in the photo, but you know there is no way it’s going to look the same at lunchtime.  My kid wasn’t the only one giving his lunch the orbital treatment; his case is hardly unique.

 

I’m going to have to be double sure that everything is anchored down, especially when I do a cheese picture (usually I stick everything together with whipped cream cheese).


Posted by in Bento, Brain Dump