What’s in your lunchbox?

The boys refuse to have school dinners. They ask them to eat peas which is quite unacceptable obviously. In some ways that suits me because I know what they eat and inspect the leftovers in the lunchbox with great care everyday.

E is pretty good at eating most of it, he always gives it a try and if he really doesn’t like something then we move on. V on the other hand very often will come  home with an almost full lunchbox and very regularly will endup eating most of it on his return home… I am not too happy about that obviously, but I guess there is a lot of time that you can either spend eating or playing and in V’s world playing wins. I suppose if he felt very hungry by lunch time he would eat more. He also has a really good breakfast so maybe he is ok to keep going for longer?

The problem with the lunchbox, the major problem is being inventive and providing nutritional and balanced meal options. Now I have been packing lunches every morning of school days for over a year and a half, with double the amount since last September and I have to admit that one thing I am very happy with, comes the school breaks, is that I DON’T HAVE TO PACK ANOTHER LUNCHBOX FOR A FEW DAYS!

I am bored of what I give them. Surely there must be more than sandwiches? I am lucky they like enough sandwich fillers to appear varied enough but I would love to give them a warm meal on days like this. How do you do it? Is there any thermos big enough to fit a sausage and mash or pasta serving? What do you pack for your children’s lunch? How do you make sure you give them the right amount of healthy carbs to go through the day (especially a cold one) without adding the packet of crisps (which I tend to give only on a Friday)?

Our regular lunchbox is made of:

A sandwich made with ham, ham and cheese, tuna mayo, egg mayo, cheese and marmite, whatever is available in the house
Breadsticks and maybe houmos or cream cheese
Babybel or Cheese String
A selection of generally 2 fruits including grapes, apples, pineapple
Yogurt
Smoothie

The problem is that it has been there lunch for over a year and I would like to add some warm options. How do you do it? Please Help!