That's plain pasta (it never occurred to me that pasta could be a finger food until I had a two-year-old), grilled tofu, and slices of peach. "The red part is beautiful and tastes sweet," said Desmond as we made the hour drive to Grandma's house during dinner time after a late afternoon swim lesson.
Then the rest of the drive was pretty much quiet as the boys ate. No desperate family sing-alongs teetering on the edge of hysteria. No I Spy. No crying. Pretty much just quiet eating while we drove.*
And ever since, I've been thinking a lot about travel meals for chubby little fingers. I like this captive eating thing. We're taking a road trip towards the end of the summer and I'm planning on inverting the traditional drive - stop to eat - drive model for a new drive and eat - stop and play - drive and eat model that will hopefully be friendlier to the abilities of the almost two- and five-year-olds.
So, help me out. What's your favorite relatively tidy kid's meal to go?
*Okay, except for the part of the trip where I tried to coach Desmond from the driver's seat in the left lane of the 710 Freeway on how to - no, nevermind, if this blog is still here in 8 years, I cannot tell the Internet this story. But then, after, there was a cup. And I said, "Is the cup stable? Or can it spill?" And he replied, "No, the cup can't spill. It's stable." And I thought, "That's awesome. He just fluently used his context clues to figure out what that word meant, and then immediately used it correctly. The almost five-year-old brain is amazing!" And then we got to Grandma's house, and it turns out that the cup was not in fact stable and all the car books needed to be wiped down or thrown out. So, we still have that skill to perfect before our road trip. But there will be two adults in the car to help through such emergencies.