Do It Better at the Park

Parenting is so easy, isn’t it? I mean, really, what’s involved – patience, creativity, readiness? Am I leaving anything out? When all those elements are at work (and let’s throw in a decent night’s sleep while we’re at it) it’s the best job in the world. Not only do things go smoothly, you get that rock star-size boost to the ego that comes from knowing, “I parented the hell out of today.” But just one piece of that Jenga game goes missing, or even gets a little wobbly, and it all goes straight to hell. My own shortcomings tend to fall in the patience category. I simply don’t have enough. I can only hope that one day, when the smalls allow me to sleep all night every night, it will return to me.

But where I really kick myself for chronically screwing up – because it’s really not that hard – is park snacks. I’m the jerk whose kid comes up to yours and stares hungrily at the lovingly prepared snack you remembered to bring. Sometimes I realized that I’ve done it again and left home empty handed and we stop somewhere along the short walk but you know how that story ends, right? It means some kind of pastry or treat and – oh the shame! – bottled water. So, my new resolution is to do better with park snacks. I think I could make my life easier by keeping all the containers required to pack a decent park snack in the same place.So, I’ll be starting with filling up a couple of our canteens with water. And if I’ve got the time I’m going to start bringing something I made myself. Or better yet, I’ll get the kids to help me make these Granola Balls They’re easy to pack up and are the perfect snack size.

But if I haven’t done any baking then I’m going to remember to throw a piece of fruit in my bag. And I always use these genius cases from Froot Guard. We wrote about them way back when we first started – click here to check it out.

And maybe I’ll toss in a small container of Cheddar Bunnies. Which will really be for me as there are few things I’d rather eat at any given moment than Cheddar Bunnies. For real, I could live on them. I like the classic they make all kinds of crackers and cereals that would make great portable snacks. We featured an assortment a few month ago, here.

Having done all these things, I can’t promise my kids won’t still prefer your kid’s snack to the ones I’ll be bringing. No amount of preparation can solve the dilemma of someone else’s food always looking better than your own.