Happy Birthday, Maria Montessori

It's Maria Montessori's 142nd birthday, and I had hoped to somehow incorporate a Montessori theme into Tiny's lunch, but yet again I lacked the imagination and time to incorporate any sort of theme, let alone a pink tower or quantity beads.  (Grrr.  Now I see the potential I had with the darned corn.)

It all began when I lost track of time at work yesterday afternoon, and ended up leaving 12 minutes later than I had planned.  I then had only 45 minutes to get to Tiny's school, change her into her ballet clothes, put up her hair into the required bun, and then drive her to ballet.  We made it just in time.  That meant that by the time we got home at around 6:00, I had little time to make dinner and the next day's lunch before putting Tiny to bed.  Those are my excuses for the sorry looking lunch I prepared.

The bottom layer holds slices of Chinese Pear and flower-shaped peaches (courtesy respectively of our generous neighbors and my kind mother), as well as store bought strawberries, blueberries and grapes.  I later added a small container of yogurt.

The second layer holds a slice of flat bread topped with honey almond cream cheese.

The third layer holds frozen corn and last night's dinner: Sauteed zucchini, onions and Quorn tenders (which Ted cannot eat because they're vegetarian, but not vegan).

And the top.

The good news is that Tiny loves her new bento-bako.  She played with it while I made dinner, and she actually helped prepare her own lunch by cutting out flowers from the peach I sliced. She also used my leaf fondant stamp to cut out shapes from some Swiss-flavored soft cheese wedges that, it turns out, she doesn't like; so out went the crackers and cheese, and in went the bread and cream cheese.

I'm hoping next Tuesday's lunch will look much better.  I'll have no excuse because I'll have a three day weekend to plan it.  Happy Labor Day!