There's trouble in bentoland.  The kiddo took the fancy bento box to school for exactly two days before he lost it.  Yes, that's right.  Two whole trips of coolness to the lunchroom and the bento box is gone.  No where to be found.  Oh, wait, its in that black hole / vortex of no where that all things go that he loses.  For example, the note from the teacher that I was supposed to receive on Friday.  Poof!  Gone.  The mailbox key.  Poof!  Gone.

I am going to make him suffer for a reasonable amount of time.  He will be subjected to standard issue public school cafeteria food.  Then I will resurrect the bento box tradition (two bento box meals makes a tradition, right?).  Only this time I will use two cheap plastic food storage containers from the grocery store versus a fancy bento box.  He's just going to have  to suffer.  :(

Bento #1: Angry Birds

So, I decided to start making bento box lunches for my son.  This seemed to be a great idea.  School food is appallingly disgusting and it's a way to make him eat more veggies while expanding his food repertoire.  Also, I'm hoping to have some bonding moments as we come up with crazy creative bento box ideas.

Our pharmacy gave me three $30 coupons because they appreciated my business so much.  I waited until the day before the coupons expired and ran to the pharmacy to spend them.  There I found our first bento box.

Bento box #1 was presented some challenges.  I went to the store and loaded up on tons of expensive, organic veggies and fruit.  Then I set about copying an angry birds design I found on the internet.  An ambitious project for the rookie.  But I wanted to set the right "cool" tone to be enjoyed by my "cool" son.

About 45 minutes into painstaking bento box construction I was distracted by the thought that I actually needed to cook dinner for the rest of my family.  My son wandered in and found my 2/3 complete rendition of  the little "Angry Birds" and loved it!  From there he took over.  He has a mighty creativity in him, just oozing to get out.  He was all about making the bento box and set to work with gusto.  He was working so hard that 45 mintues after normal bedtime he was still begging for more time to complete his master piece.  All was good until the eyes fell off one of his creations and he dissolved into tears.

Then I realized this bento box thing might just get complicated.

Our first attempt at bento boxing: "Angry Birds."

A kiwi piggy.

These little boxes do not look anything like the bentos you see anywhere else.  Nope, ours are really special and full of awesomeness.  I think anyone anywhere would be right jealous of these bento boxes.  A true work of art.