Wherein it becomes a sickness.

Ok, now I just can't stop myself. I usually pack little man's bentos in the morning but I was all fired up, didn't want to dirty any extra tupperware, yada yada yada. I already packed tomorrow's lunch - leftover taco stuff, monkey full of hot sauce - which means I get to "sleep in" an extra 15 minutes. Wahoo!

Gooooooooooooooooooooooal!

After spending the better part of the last week admiring dillions of bento photos on Flickr, I've been inspired to push on. I've also noticed some tricks of the trade - a bed of lettuce works wonders! Here's the little man's Monday Tuesday lunch - homemade chicken nuggets, rice, soy sauce, turnip kim chee, carrots and grapes. Those carrots are shaped like giraffes and an elephant. No joke. I freaking love them. They're a little frosty because I froze them. Sunday Monday night, I thought freezing them would be like putting mini blue ices right there in his bento. Monday Tuesday morning, I realized this was inane. I also realized that these organic carrots are not going to cut it. Give me some GMO, steroid fueled giganto-carrots to cut silly shapes out of, please! I was SO unbelievably thrilled to have finally turned out a bento I could be proud of, I could have let loose with a cartwheel right there in the kitchen. My excitement was met with a nonchalant "I'm probably not going to eat the lettuce, Mom." Ha! No sweat, kiddo, Mom's high on bento. ADDED: Whew, this is going to be a short week. My brain is convinced it's Monday. UPDATED: The child is charmingly weird. The carrots, grapes and half the chicken nuggets came home. The turnip kim chee? Gone, baby, gone.

Gettin' a little better...

Still nowhere near awesomesauce, but gettin' better all the time...

This one was actually for me - salmon croquette, cauliflower, carrots, a tiny monkey bearing hot sauce, a bitty fish filled with soy sauce and FAIL furikake on rice.

I used a stencil for the furikake, but when I lifted it off, all the extra little bits fell right down around the cute little bunny head shape. Oh well. Saved me from the embarassment of co-workers noticing a cute little bunny head in my lunch.