The Granola Mom

I no longer know what 'being granola' means, and I don't care. I'm way past the age where labels actually matter, despite the media's attempts to label everyone into neat sub-categories... but that's an entry all by itself.

I do know that I was never going to be 'that mom,' you know, the mom that baked home-made snacks for their kids, packed neat little lunches, and made sure everything was somewhat healthy.

Except, I am that mom.

Last year, I left it all to the school system. My daughter wanted to buy lunches. Toward the end of the year, after I began to pay more attention to what Drama Girl ate, I decided I needed to pay slightly more attention. And I read the school menu. That pretty much sold me on the idea that the school lunches just are not nutritious. Oh sure, their are 'nutritious choices' but how many kids do you really trust to make those choices, when most of us, as adults, can't make them?

Yeah.

So this year, I've been packing her lunch and filling it with healthy snacks. The thing is, the healthiest snacks are pricey.

So I baked.

I set aside two hours on Sunday, figuring this is something I plan to do weekly, and baked an entire week's worth of healthy snacks that can be alternated with fruit (which, happily, requires no baking).

And what did I bake?

Honey-wheat muffins with sunflower seeds -- mainly for breakfasts... if you think you're kids won't eat healthy, HA. My sons tracked these muffins down from upstairs and through the paper bags that were concealing them. My only inkling they found and scarfed some down were the crumbs falling from Turbo's lips...

Home-made granola --this sounds a lot more complicated than it is -- it was embarrassingly easy)

Energy bars from that kick ass 'Foods You Crave' cookbook -- with a nice peanut butter layering

And that was it. These snacks and the breakfast muffins will take my kids through the entire week, with a fruit or two tossed in.

So yeah, I'm that mom now.

But you know what? It's cheaper this way, healthier, and it spares my kids the nutritional joke that is the school lunch menu... oh with one exception, because I'm not TOTALLY that mom -- Drama Girl can eat a hideously unhealthy lunch every Friday.

Oh, and if anyone has read Lunch Lessons... let me know.. I"m thinking of picking it up, because it's hard to creatively think up healthy lunches.