Lunches I Packed September 5-8, 2023

Here’s a look at the lunches I packed for my kids to take to school last week. :)

Lunches I Packed September 5-8, 2023

There was no school on Monday because of Labor Day, so lunch at home looked like this, plus grapes and spoonfuls of peanut butter to fill their bellies.

Tuesday I packed Simple Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip with chips and a pear cup. This is a great way to sneak in protein because there are beans blended into the dip.

We’d been given two big containers of croissants, so I used them on Wednesday to make the kids Tuna Salad Croissant-wiches for lunch. I sent their favorite banana applesauce squeezie, plus cucumbers for Brayden and carrots with peanut butter for Kiya.

Thursday I woke up and realized I hadn’t done anything the day before to prep the kids’ school lunches. So I grabbed food from our freezer that I’d prepared for grab-and-go lunches. This was so helpful that now I’m trying to figure out what else I can make, baggie up, and freeze for quick lunches so it can be this easy more often!

The last time I made pizza, I froze leftover slices in baggies, so the kids got pizza in their lunch Thursday. I had also frozen Peanut Butter Snack Bars so those went into the lunchbox too, plus carrots and peanut butter for Kiya and cucumbers for Brayden, and a pear cup for each.

Our Fun Friday lunch looked a little bit different this week…

Brayden’s Hamburger Helper

I shared here how Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and I helped with a FoodNet Food Distribution on Monday and Tuesday of last week. (And how we hope to do it every week!) Volunteers get to take food also if there is enough, which is a bonus I wasn’t expecting.

The “Jr Volunteers” were given the opportunity to choose any two items from the table that they wanted and while I gave a half-effort to steer the kids in a healthy choice direction, I also wanted this to be fun for them. So I let them pick whatever they wanted.

I expected them to choose something sweet. But Brayden discovered one lonely box of Hamburger Helper and he couldn’t stop his excitement over it. “Mom!!! It’s that pasta I used to always eat before I came to live with you! I love that pasta! Can I get that please??”

As I’m typing this, I’m suddenly crying over the Hamburger Helper. My sweet, precious son. Where there was intense trauma and loss during Brayden’s first years of life, that box of pasta holds happy memories for him. He just wanted a taste of it again.

This was not the time for me to lecture him about the dangers of MSG.

“Yes, Brayden. That is a perfect choice for you today after you did such a good job helping give people food.”

All week he kept looking at that box of pasta in the pantry, making sure it was still there, asking when I would make it for him. Fun Friday, Buddy. Fun Friday.

Brayden on Friday morning:

I packed his thermos full of his beloved Hamburger Helper, and he asked if he could eat a bite with breakfast. Sure, why not?

He loved his bite, but was then the taste of it suddenly triggered a heavy load of sadness (that manifested in defiance because he doesn’t know how to process all the extreme feelings he experiences).

Sometimes we feel like we just can’t win. Always we remember that God already won.

So that’s the story of how Brayden took Hamburger Helper to school in his Friday lunch and of how much we constantly have to seek Jesus as we care for the needs of our trauma babies. In case you’re wondering, we made it through our rough morning and he did love his lunch later that day.

Kiya requested PB&J with chips for her Fun Friday lunch, plus I gave them each a peach cup and a packaged cake we’d received from the food distribution.

Phew, what a week! (I think we can all say that every week, ha.)