Lunch Note Love

How do I miss thee . . .let me write a Lunch Note!

Yes, I am one of those moms. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t intend for it to go this far. But it is what it is. I am a Lunch Note Mom. My kids expect it, look forward to it, complain heavily if I forget it, and for now, still think its cool!!! And I am getting creative at finding ways to make it easy – cause who can hand write 3 lunch notes every single day of school? I don’t have that much cute stuff to say!!

Here is my story of becoming a Lunch Note Mom.

As with all great things, it started with necessity . . . . My first born daughter is a ‘sensitive’ girl. She cried a lot as a baby. She cried a lot as a toddler. She cried at Nursery school. She cried at JK. And SK. And Grade 1 . . .everyday til Christmas. She’s a sensitive girl! To make her transitions easier, I did all the tricks; I gave her things to hold in her pocket, gave her extra kisses, volunteered in her class, tucked photos in her backpack and I wrote Notes . . . everyday. But I quickly ran out of time to write notes . . . everyday.

I had two more children by now and mommy brain in full swing. I needed to find a way to get out of this or at least make it easier as

I continued to lose the battle to get to school on time! I found a website that did lunch notes, printed them on colour paper and viola. But there were only 6 notes. I was sure they would notice I used the same note for the other 38 weeks of school. But that web site gave me an idea. Clipart. I searched for every free Disney & Princess character clipart I could find, I found High School Musical, I found Dora – I added a cute message like “Have fun with your friends ” and I printed out 30 Lunch Notes on heavier card stock paper! I was on a roll!! But then I used up all those and had no time to search for new clipart. And my oldest child was quickly outgrowing princesses!

My younger girls insisted on getting Lunch Notes too. I had a new idea. I found a sticker book with 100 of the coolest, hippest,colourfulest stickers of girls, dogs, cats, cars, beaches, dolphins and ice cream cones! I peeled off a sticker, stuck it to card stock, hand wrote in marker things like “Girls Rock!” and for under $5.00 I had 100 Lunch Notes !!

This year I have 3 kids in school, lots of lunches and lots of Lunch Notes. I needed something new to mix in with the sticker Lunch Notes. While I was printing all our best summer photos at the Kiosk last week I had an idea. If I used the “mini” photo feature I can get 4 or 6 photos on one 4x6 print of our summer in cute mini pictures. I printed out 200 mini photos for about $7.00 and cut them out, stuck them on card stock and added my cute message “Remember Kayaking! Fun Times!” The kids are in the pictures & it reminds them of all the fun we had that past summer. And the best part . . . I had hundreds of them now !!

If you have children that are a bit messy, tuck the notes into a ziplock bag. After all, how is a lunch note to survive, let alone be given to a sibling the next day, when it has sat in a puddle of yogurt all afternoon? Or go extreme like me!! I bought one of those mini laminator things – takes no time and is kinda fun to run them through. For this Lunch Note Mom, its working!

So go ahead, bring on those 255 lunches I will be making this year – I have a Lunch Note for you !

What do you send to school with your kids? Or were you savvy enough to never start !!!