Back To School with yubo for my Bigger Boy!

This Back To School lunch I made for Pickle may be the last one of his that I blog! He's decided that now that he's in middle school, he's too old for themed bentos & shaped sandwiches, and wants plain lunches.  But I packed him this one (possibly) last special lunch anyways :)

He has a Babybel cheese with a check mark carved in the wax, Oreos with a chalkboard pick stuck in the frosting of one, yogurt with chocoladehagel (sprinkles), a notebook paper peanut butter sandwich embellished with food markers, stacked atop a second plain sandwich, & a Lunchbox Love note.

Everything pictured plus a drink, napkin, & spork is packed in his new, more grown up, yubo tote. It's less bulky than the yubo lunchbox, but still the perfect size for all the yubo containers, & more:

The yubo ice pack fits perfectly in the new soft-sided Tote, along with the same container combination as can be packed in the hard-sided yubo, as well as additional yubo container(s), accessories and/or a drink.

Something else that's new for middle school is that Pickle doesn't have an aide sitting with him,  encouraging him to eat tidily & helping him pack up when he's finished.  He likes to squish his food - it's an autism/sensory thing - plus he's neither the neatest of eaters, nor very good about remembering to put the lids back on his containers, & frequently brings home a messy lunch bag covered inside & out with smushed Oreo smears & spilled yogurt. So I was pretty thrilled with the ability to completely unsnap the yubo Tote & wipe it down, or even machine wash it. No scrubbing crud out of seams, yay!

I really like that when the yubo tote is completely unsnapped it becomes a placemat. Having a messy kid myself makes me more than a bit squeamish about eating on shared surfaces... who knows what germs are lurking there ready to leap onto my lunch, heheh... so this is a great feature for me :)

See all the lunchboxes & accessories yubo has to offer at getyubo.com

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Just in case anyone's wondering about the bottle in Pickle's lunch, it's this:

It's called Bot-L, by Fred & Friends, & it's one of his favourites.  I like it well enough - it doesn't leak - but it's not insulated, & I have to hand wash it...
so I don't love it quite as much as Pickle does ;)

Disclosure: I received no monetary compensation for this post. I was offered a complimentary yubo tote to review with no obligation to endorse. This post does contain affiliate links to products I used. All opinions & images are my own. 

Awesome Autism Day

April is National Autism Awareness Month in America,  & April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day.  Pickle calls it Awesome Autism Day :)   I packed him an awesome autism lunch with a special message:

I used tiny alphabet, heart, & puzzle piece shaped cookie cutters to say "I love you to pieces" with his peanut butter sandwich, & filled the heart shape with cupcake sprinkles in the colours of the Autism Awareness ribbon.  I froze some yogurt in a puzzle piece mold & nestled a piece in some plain yogurt - it holds it shape pretty well as it thaws. And I topped one of his favourite oatmeal muffins with some blue cupcake sprinkles - they're meant to be flowers but I think they look kind of like puzzle pieces :)

If you aren't a regular BentOnBetterLunches reader,  you might be thinking: Cute lunch, but so nutritionally unbalanced!  Maybe you even want to ask: Where are the fruits & vegetables?  The answer most days is:  On his dinner plate, pureed in pizza sauce. Rarely in his lunch box.  Why not?  Pickle has autism, & like many kids with ASDs, he takes picky eating to an extreme.  

Eating issues are very common among kids on the autism spectrum. 

The reasons for this are as diverse as the kids themselves.  Pickle has difficulty with food textures*. Graduating from purees to solids was a slow process that took patience, & help from his speech-language pathologist. And he still prefers softer solids - like peanut butter sandwiches :)

But a peanut butter sandwich every day ?!

Autism challenges us daily, turning simple tasks into a battle, so we try to choose our conflicts carefully.  Pickle's diet is just not something worth fighting over.  If he wants to have the same thing for lunch every day, that's okay.  I personally find it boring, but he seems to find it reassuring*.  So, to make packing the same thing every day less tedious, fun even, I challenged myself to make his sandwiches as many different ways as I could, & set a goal of 101 - and I did it! See all 101 peanut butter sandwiches here :)

I like to think that Pickle's lunches are something he looks forward to during his school day.  He loves to learn, but autism can make some aspects of going to school difficult. Sitting still, working quietly, & transitioning from one subject to another take a lot of effort for him, & the noise & crowds at recess & lunch can be overwhelming.  A familiar lunch is comforting :)

Pickle's Autism Awareness lunch is packed in our new Bentology containers. If the bento box design looks familiar, that's because Bentology is the evolution of one of our longtime favourite brands, Laptop Lunches! Bonus - we already had a spork that matches the new turquoise coloured lids :) And last but never least, I tucked in a Lunchbox Love note. I can always find one with the perfect sentiment ♥

                   

* Sensory Processing Disorder has a higher prevalence among children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
* Many people with autism have a strong preference for routines and sameness. - Autism, routines, & resistance to change.

Have you seen my keys?

Last week I was a guest on my friend Stacey's blog,  Student Bento. Stacey & I have something besides bento in common - a family member on the autism spectrum - so I decided to make my post about my Pickle's lunch. Here's my little man waving hello as he eats that very lunch. Can you guess what it is?

If you follow my blog you probably already know that Pickle has autism & is quite stuck on having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, every day, which inspired my 101 peanut butter sandwiches challenge. When I began that challenge I made a list of creative sandwich ideas, & I still haven't gotten around to making all of them. Piano keys is one from way back, I'm so glad I finally made it! Here's Pickle pretending to play his piano sandwich:

Piano keys was an idea that I kept putting off because I thought it would be a bit time-consuming. And it was, especially since I don't play piano,  so I had to keep checking a photo of one to be sure I got the key shapes right! But hooray, it's summer, I had plenty of time! And Pickle helped! Read how in my post at Student Bento :)  And in case you don't care to read more & just came here to look at the pictures, here's Pickle's piano peanut butter sandwich:

FYI: No scraps were wasted in the making of this sandwich. Pickle stood beside me while I made it,  happily snacking on the bits I cut off ;) 

It's Shark Week!

Discovery Channel's Shark Week is one of our favourite summer traditions! So I was setting this stuff out tonight to make my 13 year old a shark-themed bento tomorrow, when I remembered he has oral surgery in the morning! He'll be wanting soft foods only for a few days, and probably only ice cream tomorrow, so my lunch plan would have to change. That's okay - like Fin in Sharknado 2, I'm just making this up as I go along ;)

Shark Lunch Alert!  With a bit of thought, I made use of Beanstalk's Laptop Lunches & the shark accessories for Pickle! He really liked the fun shark fact on the Lunchbox Love note, and the flip side too, which said "Don't be afraid to ask questions. That's how we learn." That boy loves asking questions, lots of questions :)  Shark fact card from Lunchbox Love for Kids Volume 9

I made a couple of peanut butter sandwiches with a shark cookie cutter. They were kind of small so I added a sandwich ocean floor beneath them - the perfect place to stick the bento pick letters. My picky boy never eats crackers so I only included 2 goldfish - in case he felt like trying something new (he didn't). A drop of food colouring made blue yogurt to stick the shark fin cupcake pick into, & I chopped a string cheese into triangle shark teeth. Sharks do have several rows of teeth, you know :)

Maybe Beanstalk'll heal fast & be back in biting form soon... as Marian Call sings in The Shark Week Song, "It be Shark Week all week through!"

And here are a couple of my favourite previously devoured shark bentos:

 

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Click the pic for the original post 

I've got a couple more fun Shark Week ideas I'm going to try to get to, though even if I do, I may not get a chance to blog them - so you should follow me on Instagram - I'll at least post a pic if I do!

Update: I did get around to making one of my sharkish food ideas - Sharknado cinnamon rolls! And also a shark lunch for Birdie, with a Sharknado pizza roll :) Click the pic to see all my shark week posts:

Happy Shark Week!

Some stuff I used to make these lunches:

The Angels Have The Lunch Box

Pickle's ABA tutor comes to our house for a few hours a day, and one of the ways they work on appropriate play & social skills is by playing games.  This week they've been playing Yahtzee, the Doctor Who Edition!  While Pickle was poking through my sandwich & cookie cutters choosing one for his daily peanut butter sandwich, he spotted my TARDIS cutter and asked why I never make him a Doctor Who lunch.  So I did.  Don't blink!

If you're unfamiliar with the reference,  it's a Doctor Who thing :)  

I made Bella a Whovian bento as well,  and I had a little more fun with hers...  She also got a TARDIS & Weeping Angel sandwich,  plus baby carrots,  Rainier cherries,  honeydew melon with alphabet picks,  jelly babies,  & a jammie dodger biscuit,  packed in EasyLunchboxes:

 I've been saving this Lunchbox Love note for just such a lunch :)

I used my TARDIS & Weeping Angel cookie cutter set from the exclusive Doctor Who range at Lakeland in the UK, which also includes Cyberman & K-9 and Dalek & Sontaran sets :)  If you're in the US you can find a similar cookie cutter set at ThinkGeek:

There's no Weeping Angel in the ThinkGeek set, but it has Eleven's sonic screwdriver. And perhaps that's for the best, since they say the image of an Angel becomes an Angel... which is why as soon as Bella opened her EasyLunchbox, she snatched up the Angel sandwich and bit it's head off :)

36 days until the Doctor Who Series 8 Premiere!

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Stuff used to make these lunches: