Last year Georgia was in pre-school. Sometimes we stayed for Lunch Bunch, which was really just extended playtime with hardly any eating involved. When the kids did eat, there were plenty of parents around to open containers, unscrew water bottles and poke straws into juice boxes. But now Georgia’s in the Big Time and the Momster has a new dilemma.

We have the Laptop Lunchbox, with its nifty bento style containers and briefcase style carrying case. It’s wonderful, and made of safe plastics since they first started making ‘em. The compartments keep everything separate and are the perfect size for a small lunch eater. But Georgia can’t open the box. We’ve tried tutorials, practice sessions, a knife, but she can’t get it open. So I gave up on the Laptop Lunchbox.

I then decided to use a couple of the Laptop containers in her soft Tinkerbell lunchbox (I’m sure it’s lead free, but there’s definitely PVC). But she only ate the grapes from the small clear plastic Gladware container we copped from my mom. She was ravenous when I picked her up from school, and when I asked why she didn’t eat her sandwich or pretzels she said, “Oh! I didn’t know they were in there!” The wonderful Laptop Lunch containers are colorful and completely opaque, apparently rendering any food within undetectable. The next day I reminded her there was food in the other containers, but when I picked her up from school they were again untouched. This time she couldn’t get them open.

So I rummaged through my cupboard and found two small, clear deli containers. Both of them are #5 plastic. I found two mismatched lids that happen to fit. I put orange slices in one and her sandwich in the other, plus four cheese puffs (non-nutritious, but organic!) in the Gladware. When I picked her up, her lunch was gone! So, problem solved with reused, nontoxic, unattractive deli containers, which at the end of the day, I noticed, were swimming in a puddle of grape juice. I had given her a rare treat of a juice box, I cut a hole in the straw cover so she could get it out easily. But I had also asked her to put anything she didn’t finish back in her lunchbox so I could compost or reuse or recycle it. True to her word, the juice box was in her lunch box, and since she has never finishes a juice box, the rest of it was pooling and leaking out of the seams. No more juice boxes, that’s easy enough, she likes water best anyway, but then what to do about a water container?

We have several safe water holding options; a Sigg bottle, which she can’t open by herself; a Camelback bottle, which is far too big and has too many annoying, losable parts; some cute sippy animals, which leak; a steel thermos, which is too big and heavy. She only needs about 4 ounces of water, and I wanted it to fit in her lunchbox. So we went to the store and tested all the BPA-free water bottles, and finally ended up with an Avent Magic Sport bottle that doesn’t leak, and is easy for her to open and close. It has just one small part; a silicone valve that makes it “magic” and it’s easy to clean.

So, Houston, we have lunchbox. My fantasies of fancy bento lunches are off the table for now, but she only has 20 minutes to eat lunch, and a pretty tiny and specific appetite anyway. I am proud she’s bringing her containers home, and that I haven’t heard complaints about too much PB&J. Week four of Kindergarten, and the challenges keep coming!