Pea’s school is over at 12:30, but I am supposed to send her with a lunch. This is the same schedule she had at her Fort Worth preschool, and so I always opted to send her with a lunchbox filled with a healthy and hearty snack, rather than an actual lunch. I prefer that when she gets home from school, we eat our lunch together, as a family.

So I’ve always sent her with things such as pita chips and hummus, or tortilla chips with guacamole. And then I include a Motts for Tots, a piece of cheese, a small container of grapes or sliced strawberries. Nothing fancy, quick to throw together and healthy because it’s homemade, and so I know what’s in it.

The good news is that only two of the three days that she’s in school are lunch days. The third day is just a snack. So I don’t necessarily feel as if I have to mix up the menu all that much. But I do believe that variety is the spice of life, particularly when a small child and food are involved. I want her to taste many things, not get hung up on the same favorites, and so it’s occurred to me that I need to shake things up a bit, when it comes to her school ‘lunch.’ It also occurs to me now that I may have to rethink my idea of a snack as a substitute for a lunch, when she’s at school. Pretty soon, she’s going to be in school for a full-day, and she’ll need the nourishment of an actual meal, and I don’t want to wait until her first full-day of classes to shock her with a lunchbox meal when she sits at the cafeteria table with her friends.

I have a couple of books that I’ve been perusing casually, but tonight? I intend on actually reading them, albeit quickly. One of them is “Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children.” This one is not quite what I thought it would be, the bulk of it relies on supplying the reader with information concerning what is wrong with the way we feed our kids today, and since we’re pretty health-conscious in our home, I don’t need to be reminded that too much fast food has led to an epidemic of childhood obesity in our country. Fast food is a rare treat in our home, and I am of the opinion that the less my girls know of it, the better. The book does have a section on recipes, ideas on combinations to create a complete meal, and if you have a kid who is in school for a full day and really does need a complete lunch, then the information is probably going to be more useful for you than it is for me right now.

The second book is “The Healthy Lunchbox.” This one, too, relies on quite a bit of nutritional information. But it does have a bit more heft in the recipes section than the former, although still, English muffin mini pizza? Not realistic, in my book. Nor is a thermos of soup. Seriously, are there schools out there that actually having microwaves for kids to reheat their meals? Because nothing sounds worse to me than cold chicken nuggets. Even if they are cooked with panko. But keeping cold foods cold? That just might be something I’m going to have to figure out, so that her cheese doesn’t go limp by lunchtime, sitting on the shelf in her classroom. Her cute little lunch-bag? Perhaps we’re in need of an insulated replacement. Sooner than I’d expected, but it just never crossed my mind…

What I was looking for when I purchased these books was a cookbook with menus and recipes for a kid’s lunchbox. I read a lot, I know what is healthy and what isn’t, so the nutritional information is kind of a moot point for me. I just want fresh ideas! So I’m looking at what I eat, and wondering how to tweak it for a kid. Among my thoughts? Edamame, for one. Pea loves the stuff, and i think it will pack well. Sending hummus or guacamole to preschool with cut-up veggies rather than tortillas or pita chips. Red peppers are deliciously appealing, I think. Sweet and crunchy. Perhaps even some meant-to-be-eaten-at-room-temperature pasta salads? I’m on the search now. I think I know what I’m going to be doing this evening, printing out some new recipes for school lunches from some new food sites I’ve just discovered, among them, Recipezaar.

More to come on this topic, definitely. I’m on it…