Children of working parents learn they have to carry a lunch to school every day. This has to be the most difficult meal to prepare because if you don't do it right, there is no second chance.

Here are some suggestions that I would like to share:

Make lunches the night before school & work and put them in the fridge. Use an insulated lunch bag. The ones I use have a removable inner bucket and I put the food inside it and then place in the fridge. My kids may have different things in their lunches so I have put their names on the outside of each bucket. You may forget what you had put in each bucket.

Use small freezer packs that can be refrozen every night. Nothing is worse than a cold lunch pretending to be a warm one. If you don't have freezer packs, freeze a juice box overnight and then put in the lunch bag. It will keep the contents cool and will be nicely thawed by lunch time.

Wrap lettuce separately in a baggie with a sprinkle of water. It keeps it nice and crisp. If you run out of lettuce for sandwiches, use sliced pickles.

Kids are usually sick of sandwiches within 2 weeks of starting school so use substitutes such as cheese & crackers, cup of soup (if the school has hot water available) or something hot in a thermos.

Use a variety of breads, such as pita pockets, kaiser buns, croissants, and bagels.

Buy plastic forks & spoons to use with soups or puddings. They can be reused if your kid remembers to bring them back. Keep the plastic spoons or forks you have used at fast food places. Same with napkins, if you happen to grab more than what you actually used at the eatery.

Use cold cuts without bread but add servings of sliced cheese, pickles, carrots, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower. The kids will wrap the meat around the items.

If you have a meat grinder, try ground up bologna or ham with pickle and mayo.

Buy individual serving packages of ranch salad dressing to use as dip for carrots & celery or with salad that has been put in plastic containers.

Buy individual packages of peanut butter to use with crackers. Check with your child's school in regard to peanut products. More schools are adopting a "no peanut" policy due to children having allergies.

Put drinks from large containers and into re-usable plastic drink containers (some containers have built-in straws). If you don't want to use the plastic drink containers, use juice boxes because they are time-savers. They may cost a bit more but shop around at food warehouses for deals.

Try using grilled cheese sandwiches prepared the night before. Put a bit of pizza sauce on the bread.

For a while, my kids were asking for the packaged oriental noodle soup. They would sprinkle the flavor pack over the dry noodles and eat it like a sandwich ( a little dry if you ask me) Buy at the bulk food store.

The kids like to have interesting things like fortune cookies, gelatin creatures, sesame snaps, licorice, and caramel corn.

Kids really like bananas, but they seem to send an odor throughout the whole lunch. Use them for home snacks or for muffins.

Breathe a sigh of relief when your kid's school has a special lunch day. (In case you don't know what that is: At our schools they have a hot dog day or hamburger day once a month. The parents pay for the meal, but at least you don't have to make a lunch that day.)

I hope some of these suggestions can help make lunches more interesting for the kids and less of a chore for you. I guess an empty lunch bag at the end of the day is a good indicator!

This article appeared first on Suite 101, Working Mothers

About the Author: Maureen is editor of "Working Mothers" and mom to three boys who range in ages from 10 to 15. She has held a full-time job before, during and after having children. After a divorce when the children were young, she was sole supporter for several years.

She and her partner Jim, live in a city in the outskirts of Vancouver BC Canada where she works as a Manager in the Manuals Department of a credit union. She is also the webmaster of her company's intranet.

Maureen's interests are computers, especially in the area of online publication and creating personal web pages. You can email her at mkfleury@suite101.com. Visit her homepage: Maureen's World