See You Later, Alligator! Last Kindergarten Lunch

 

I'd fallen asleep the night before, so didn't have time to pack anything fancy for Z's very last Kindergarten lunch! Oh no! I'd wanted to do something clever, like at Bento For Kidlet. She has done geeky farewell quotes the past few years, and they're just brilliant! (See Kidlet's Farewell to 5th, Goodbye to 6th (which still makes me tear up a bit,) and So Long to 7th!)
But Z wouldn't understand any of those references yet. So I picked out a farewell she would recognize, and shaved off a few precious minutes of prep time by using a pick instead of spelling out the last word! Ha!

Glutino Table Crackers with sliced goat cheese, Dandies marshmallow; organic snap peas, carrots, apricot, cherries 

I cut most of my message out of sliced goat cheese (no casein or lactose!) with some mini alphabet cutters, then "glued" them to the top cracker with some mustard. I was a bit slappy-dashy there, as I was in a hurry, so you can see the mustard where I had to shift letters around to try and fit or center them better. Oh well.

An alligator pick stuck in a Dandies dye-free vegan marshmallow completes the message... I can't remember what that's called, where the text uses pictures to fill in for some of the words for early readers... Pictogram? Or in this case, a pick-togram! Ha!

I tucked a 1st pick in with her fruit, to represent her entering First Grade next Fall. Finally got to use these, as I totally forgot for E's first birthday lunch! Doh! Now just need one of them to be into something competitive and win First Place! Hahaha!

I had a few carrot coins cut with a flower veggie cutter, so I used them to pretty-up the snap peas. Done!

Even though it wasn't a great match for the general color scheme, I chose the purple EasyLunchbox Brights lid because it's her favorite color. And this lunch was all about her, right?

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My amazing child has grown so much this past year! I am so proud of everything she has accomplished, everything she has overcome, and everything she is working to improve!

We had her go to two schools this past year for a variety of reasons. One, I wanted her to have one more year someplace familiar, with classmates and teachers she'd known for up to two years at the private school. She'd done so well there the past two years, and had blossomed, socially and emotionally. And Two, I didn't want her starting First Grade someplace completely strange and new, with kids who had known one another a whole year already. In the past she has transitioned better with part-time at two different places - one old, one new - when we switched from the co-op preschool to the drop-off preschool. So while it meant I was pretty much tethered to a smaller area all day (since I had to be back within a 3-hour window between drop-off and pick-up at each location,) it was hopefully the best way to help her be as successful as possible in overcoming her social and emotional issues.

But that meant that even though the public school didn't do a Kindergarten graduation ceremony, we still got one at the private school! Woop!

She wore the hat for about 3.5 seconds total, and sat during much of the singing. But the kids did a few hand bell songs, and I was so proud that I cried. She not only nailed all her notes, but they'd trusted her with a solo bell - no other kid had the same color, so no one to cover for her if she opted not to cooperate or wasn't paying attention.

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