Lunchbox Notes
It’s been quite a while since I blogged about the lunchbox notes I doodle for my girls. About three years ago, inspired by some creative dads, I tried my hand at creating illustrated lunchbox notes. These days, the girls don’t actually take lunchboxes to school anymore, since both are on the school lunch plan. I have to slip the notes into various binders and books in the girls’ backpacks so they find them during their school day. The notes are a way for me to tell them (when I’m not around!) that I love them and I’m thinking about them. The girls love them, and they have saved all the lunchbox notes I’ve made them in little photo albums!
I haven’t made as many lunchbox notes for the girls this school year, in part because of the lack of lunchboxes, in part because my school nights are a little busier these days. (Two-hour phone calls to my girlfriend after our kids go to bed are pretty common occurrences these days! I haven’t talked on the phone this much since I was a teenager…) But I still manage to doodle something for the girls a couple of times a month. Below are some of the notes I’ve sent in this year.
The girls binged one of the newer Scooby-Doo series back in September, so that led to a couple of notes starring the Mystery Inc. gang:
The thirteen-year-old spent almost a week at a camp in North Carolina with her seventh grade class last fall. She was super nervous before she went, but she had a blast. I was really proud of her for stepping so far outside her comfort zone!
In January, after finishing Howl’s Moving Castle during family reading, we watched the Miyazaki movie adaptation. The girls’ favorite characters, Turniphead and Calcifer, made an appearnce on the next day’s lunchbox notes:
(More on that film competition in a future post! Let’s just say I’m really proud of my little filmmaker!)
Also in January, we read Bone: Coda, the short sequel to Jeff Smith’s amazing Bone comic book series. This wasn’t the first time Fone Bone and his friends showed up on our lunchbox notes!
My nine-year-old really likes it when I come up with my own characters. Last month, she made a request: a turtle in a top hat. I went with a Mandrake the Magician look for the turtle, which led me to go with a Flash Gordon-inspired mouse for the other lunchbox note:
(There’s a fair bit of Mouse Guard in that last one, too!)
I’ll finish with a series I did in the fall leading up to Halloween. I wanted to challenge myself a little, so I tried to see what I could do with some typical Halloween monsters.
I like how these turned out. And so did the nine-year-old!
There’s still plenty of time left this school year for more lunchbox notes. We finished Phineas and Ferb recently… maybe it’s time for Perry the Platypus to make an appearance!