Sound the Octo Alert!

Tiny loves a computer animated show on Disney Jr. called Octonauts.  It's a show that Ted and I don't mind Tiny watching because each episode features a real ocean creature and its adventures or dilemmas.  Ted and I are as fascinated as Tiny is when we watch it with her. 

The main characters in the Octonauts are Captain Barnacles Bear, Kwazii Kitten, and Peso Penguin.  The Captain is the leader of the Octopod, which travels around the world's oceans.  Kwazii is Captain Barnacles' first mate.  A one-eyed pirate cat, Kwazii Kitten is the group's most adventurous member and the first to jump to the conclusion that something unknown is a mythical sea creature.  Peso is the timid penguin medic who reluctantly accompanies Captain Barnacles and Kwazii when they're in the Gup-A, B, C, D or E (Get it?  Gupp-E - guppy) exploring the ocean floor.  There are other characters, but the story usually revolves around the three aforementioned amigos.

I had been trying to incorporate a history, spelling or math lesson into Tiny's bentos, but I realized that 1) it's damned hard to do, and 2) Tiny isn't incredibly interested in the history bentos.  The whole point of my bento adventures is to get the kid to eat, so popular television and book characters it will be.

The Octonauts and the Montessori School Adventure!

I had the darndest time getting a good shot of any of the lunch, so I posted my best.  Captain Barnacles is made of a boiled egg placed in my bear mold.  I sliced the egg in half after it set in the mold for about 10 minutes.  I did this so that I could remove the yolk, which Tiny hates.  I then painted Barnacles' features on one half of the egg using my cake decorating paints.  I placed Barnacles' head on a bed of couscous with chickpeas and peas in hopes that it would look as if he's buried in sand.  <cough>  Then I chopped up the other half of the egg, and made it "snow" on which Peso and his little cousin Pinto lie. 

Delicious, nutritious and adorable.

I got the idea for the penguins from foodgawker, which included ingredients, but no instructions.  None were needed - they were super easy to make. The ingredients are: two black olives, two slices of carrot, and cream cheese.  That's it!

Next came Kwazii Kitten.

I could not get the camera to focus on Kwazii, but, hey, look at those sharp Goldfish crackers!

I carved Kwazii's features into a Clementine, and then used my cake decorating paint to fill in the eye and eye patch.  I reversed the mouth cutout and placed it back into the area from which I'd carved it to make the mouth more distinct.  The nose, barely visible above, is a tiny pink sprinkle.

Finally, I assembled what was kind of sort of meant to look like Professor Inkling Octopus. The first photo above shows it in the bottom left corner.  To make it, I attempted to carve spirals into the bottom half of an apple using a potato swirler I got when I bought a set of Ginsu knives at a supermarket demonstration.  (Hey, don't laugh - the knives are pretty awesome.)  The swirler didn't work with the apple as expected, so I kind of just posed the swirls I was able to salvage into one of the containers, and then placed the other half of the apple on top of that.  I threw in some sliced peaches and grapes for good measure. 

This Octonauts bento was actually funner to make than the others I've attempted.  Perhaps a little popular culture won't hurt.  :)

Happy Birthday Farrokh Bulsara

Today in 1946 Farrokh Bulsara was born.  You may know him by the name he took later in life: Freddie Mercury.  Unless you have lived under a rock for the last 40 years, you probably know that Freddie Mercury was the singer of the British band Queen.  Tiny has heard Ted and me sing various Queen songs from time to time, so she has had exposure to the awesomeness of Freddie Mercury, but, well, we're no Freddie Mercury, so lord knows how Bohemian Rhapsody sounds coming from our mouths.  Today, Tiny will listen to Queen, and today she will eat a lunch in honor of Queen and Freddie Mercury.

I tried to work in some references to songs:

The bicycle represents the song "Bicycle Race. (Which, by the way, is not a dirty song.  It just has a really dirty video.)  The word "Friend"* is for the song "You're My Best Friend."

The fruit is meant to resemble a crown.  Work with me here.

The chocolate graham crackers represent the song "Another one Bites the Dust." The container of yogurt and the corn represent nothing.  Unless you can think of something clever to share, in which case - psshht - I totally thought of that.

Ted and I won't get into Freddie Mercury's sad death when we tell Tiny about him, but will instead introduce her to his magnificent voice, brilliant lyrics, and awesome music.

Happy Birthday, Freddie Mercury.  May you rest in peace.  :)

*Confession time:  I misspelled the word "Friend" when I assembled the bento (duh: "i" before "e" except after "c"), and only discovered my mistake this morning.  After a hasty and sloppy Photoshop of the pic, I posted it.  I fixed it because I really don't want to be featured in Failblog.  In my own defense, I have an aversion to placing "i" before "e" in the word "friend" because if you remove the "r," you've spelled "fiend."  And my friends are not fiends.

Peter Rabbit

We ended up spending our Labor Day weekend indoors because Tiny had a bad cold, and couldn't handle being active for too long.  We did play ball in our family room, and I ended up falling flat on my face when I tried to toss the ball in a unique way.  When I tried to bounce the ball off my behind, my feet slipped out from under me, and, though I caught myself with my arms, my chin hit the floor pretty hard.  I have a big lump on my chin, and the punch ended up affecting my ear and jaw.  My whole body aches too; taking a fall when one is older is pretty violent.  It's not at all like when one falls in her twenties.  This story has nothing to do with bento, so I'll get to that now.

Part of the routine when Tiny is ill is that she gets to watch a little more t.v. than usual, so she gets to have lunch while watching a program.  We ordered Chinese on Friday night, and enjoyed the leftovers the next day.  I ordered Lo Mein for Tiny and me, and the next day I assembled the tofu and noodles into what kind of resembled a unicorn (the noodles functioning as the mane and tail).  Tiny didn't eat it because "it was too pretty to eat."  That made me feel pretty good, but I later found out that she didn't eat it because she wasn't crazy about the Lo Mein.  I didn't take a photo of it either because, like I said, it "kind of" resembled a unicorn - in an impressionistic kind of way.

I prepared today's lunch last night, and was actually able to work in a theme.  Today in 1893 Beatrix Potter send a note to her governess' son with the first drawing of Peter Rabbit.  Tiny loves Beatrix Potter's stories, especially Peter Rabbit, so I used Peter Rabbit as the theme.  Don't laugh too much, but this is a bunny:

Peter Rabbit.  Sort of.

Peter has three pieces of Quorn tenders and some cheddar cheese baked inside of him.  His body is made of Pillsbury crescent rollups, and his eyes are made of lentils. 

I tried to carry the Peter Rabbit theme throughout...

...but, not being creative, I could only think to include carrots and a cat pick.  The cat represents, well, the cat that Peter happens upon when lost in Mr. McGregor's garden.  The carrots represent what bunnies stereotypically eat when in a garden.  In the story, Peter eats lettuce, French beans, radishes and parsley.  Tiny purports to love lettuce, but she rarely eats it when it's on her plate or in her sandwiches.  She will have nothing to do with green beans, radish, or parsley, so I couldn't really incorporate any of that into her lunch.  We'll call the frozen peas (yes, she likes them frozen) little heads of lettuce, the raspberries gooseberries (where Peter gets caught up), and the Chinese pears potatoes (near which Peter loses one of his shoes).  I later added some yogurt and crackers to the bottom level where Peter was stored.  I think Tiny will love it.