So I bit the bullet and made the first bento ever. Well, first made by this mama and first presented to Ruby that is.

Its taken quite a long time for me to finally get down to making a bento lunch for my baby. I’ve been reading various blogs for a little while including Julie’s wonderfully insightful blog Teaching “good” eaters, What’s for lunch at our house & Bent on better lunches.

I unfortunately chose a day when I really didn’t have anything that went together particularly well but I guess thats the beauty of bento, you can put together little pieces of different things and it looks exciting.

I chose stars as the theme because its probably the most popular word in my little darling’s growing repertoire. Plus I happened to have a collection of star cookie cutters (none of which were actually small enough for most of my needs so I ended up cutting a lot by hand).

Unfortunately I don’t have ANY bento supplies at all so once I’d made everything I had to scratch around for things to use. It doesn’t look great but it serves the purpose I guess.

So, here it is: a peanut butter and honey star-shaped sandwhich on wholegrain bread that I flattened with a rolling pin first, 3 multigrain vita-weat crackers with star-shaped slices of cheese, a container of baby garden peas (which is pretty much the only green veggie that she will eat that isn’t hidden in some other food), star-shaped pieces of watermelon, sliced kiwi fruit on a skewer (the middles look like stars!) and a cup of yogurt:

First ever Bento!

Check out the little cup that Granny gave my darling when they were visiting last December, he’s the cutest little bright yellow melamine duck with a cute little lid that fits on too:

Duck cup

I am pleased to report that lunch was a real hit! I lost count how many times I heard her squeal out a high pitched “thtar!” It was lovely to watch her little face light up each time she found a new one, very cute.

Thanks to all the bento bloggers and encouraging mums out there for the motivation to finally give bento a try!