Crouching Mother, Hidden Toddler

Today was a nice sunny day without being too hot. I love it like that. I felt energized enough to leave the house today too, not something that happens that often these days. So I did some long-awaited grocery shopping. I had to get a lot so I was counting on Willow to behave for me. Didn’t wanna take any chances so I brought along some lollypops, rice cakes and a juice box. I know Stephen thinks this isn’t a good idea, that I should teach her to be good without bribery but I say, do what you have to do to make life easier. I only ever bribe for grocery shopping and it’s usually just a lollypop, maybe a juice cup too. She was mad at the color of the lollypop I got for her. It had a purple wrapper and so she picked it for that, but after removing the wrapper it was orange so we had a little squabbly but I tempted her into it. Other than that, she was good.

I then went home and unloaded all the groceries. I noticed the snack cupboard was chock full of mostly empty bags of cereal. So I made up some trail mixes for Willow and for Stephen’s work lunches using mostly leftovers of things I had. So they don’t look like your usual snack mixes, more like cereal, but I tried to keep them tasty and good for you.


The jar on the left contains: Lightly salted peanuts, slivered almonds, chopped walnuts, craisins, chopped dried apricots, chocolate chips, rice krispies, coco krispies, low fat pretzels and banana chips.

The jar on the right contains: Plain cheerios, banana chips, low fat pretzels, granola clusters, low sugar frosties, chocolate/peanut butter chips, honey gold fish, Special K yogurt and berries cereal.

Speaking of lunches, I recently ordered Stephen a Mr Bento lunch box from Amazon. I really like all the cute Japanese lunch boxes out there that seem to be all the rage at the moment and wanted to get one for my hubby so that he could have nice lunches for work. Homemade lunches would save money also as we eat more leftovers and less takeout. I did my research, read all the reviews and then decided that Mr Bento would be the most suitable. Wish I had a need for one, I would get myself a nice girly one with cute little compartments. Can’t wait till Willow is eating packed lunches. Maybe I’ll get one early for her and just hold onto it lol.

Here’s an Amazon pic of Mr Bento.


He’s a nice size and weight, insulated, comes with a cool little bag to tote him around in. The Japanese don’t usually eat sandwich type packed lunches so it’s designed more with their food in mind. There’s a bowl for your main dish, a soup bowl, rice and fruit etc. I could always squash some sandwiches in there or do some small pita pocket sandwiches. May main goal is to keep it mostly healthy and varied. As I usually just pack Stephen a sandwich, yogurt, fruit and granola bar for lunch I expect to get a lot of leftovers at first. But I will persevere and get him used to eating nice healthy meals for lunch soon enough!