Sometimes it's all in the packaging

Just three days into packing school lunches and I think I have already worked through most of the stages of grieving. On the first day I was firmly in denial and now I think I'm somewhere between depression and acceptance.

Okay, but here is something I have learned over seven years of making school lunches: sometimes kids think they don't like something, but they do. They just don't know they like it because it has always been presented in the same way. For instance, if someone always served you wine in an old, cracked plastic cup you got one time through a promotion at a fast food joint, you might think, "I don't really get what the hype is around this wine stuff."

Then someone hands you a nice Shiraz in a glass with a stem and, suddenly, you're a freaking connoisseur.

Are you still with me? Are you wondering what plastic cups and Shiraz have to do with school lunches? Brace yourself: here comes the point.

This morning I got up and didn't know what to make for the kids' lunches. Then I spied a can of tuna. Then I admonished myself, "You know the boy doesn't like tuna!" Then I told myself to figure out a way to make the kid eat the tuna.

So instead of just making a boring old tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread, I dug around in my deep freezer for some pitas. Then I dug around in my crisper for an apple and some lettuce. Do you see where this is going? Look:

I mixed the tuna with some mayo and then threw in some chopped up apple, skin-on, for some crunch.

I layered the apple/tuna mixture in the pita with some shredded lettuce. Then I rounded out the lunch with some juice, watermelon, grapes, whole wheat crackers and a little treat.

Then I had some coffee. And maybe a little Shiraz in a plastic cup. Don't judge me, I am still grieving.

Did the boy eat his tuna-in-a-pita? Yes. Yes he did. And he even liked it. Although he seemed surprised that the crunchy red chunks were apple. "I thought that was radish!" he exclaimed.

Note to self: boy's taste buds are broken.