Notes from a Lunch Box

I may not have claimed land in Africa so I can pronounce my daughter a princess, but I have found a way to remind my daughters that I’m thinking of them, while exercising the doodling skills I’ve been building while sketchnoting. This spring, I started sending in hand-drawn notes with my girls’ school lunches.

Creative lunch box notes. They seem to be something of a trend in the world of dads these days. My favorite is probably Rhett Reeves, who includes impressive drawings of characters from pop culture on his son’s lunch box notes. Here’s a sample:

I think the first set of lunch box notes hand-drawn by a dad were those of David Laferriere. He’s been doodling little creatures on his kid’s sandwich bags since 2008.

There are others, like Brent Almond, who specializes in super-heroes.

Jonathan Palmisano also draws from pop culture.

And then there’s Bill Childs, whose teenage daughter receives daily updates from Night Vale, the fictional town featured in one of my favorite podcasts, Welcome to Night Vale.

Inspired mostly by Rhett Reeves, I decided to try my hand at illustrated lunch box notes for Hannah and Lily this past school year. Some of them turned out pretty well, I think. There were Olympic-themed notes…

In the days surrounding our May the Fourth party, there were Star Wars notes…

Notes about Girl Scout Cookies…

A note with Lily’s favorite zoo animal…

A note featuring the coolest Easter Egg that Lily decorated…

There was a congratulatory note for Lily after she learned to roller skate…

Luke the dog made it on a note after he joined our family…

The girls love their lunch box notes. They show them to their friends, and they compare notes when they see each other in after care. They save all their notes, too, keeping their collections in their lunch boxes. (We figured out early on that the notes need to stay in Ziploc bags, otherwise condensation from their ice packs makes the ink run.)

Each lunch box note takes around 15 minutes to draw. That includes searching online for a reference image and sometimes practicing once or twice before I draw the final version. With my parenting schedule, I only pack them a lunch one or two days a week, so the notes don’t take too much of my time, but there are definitely nights where I can’t fit in a half hour of doodling, so they don’t get a note with every lunch.

Hand-drawn lunch box notes aren’t something that every dad can do — I get that. I think the takeaway here is that there’s great value in spending time and creativity making something for your kids, something that communicates to them that you’re thinking about them and that you love them. It doesn’t have to be lunch box notes, although I think kids appreciate getting a little reminder of their parents’ love halfway through their school day. Parents can show their kids they’re thinking about them and that they value them in many ways. I’m just happy I’ve found a way that works for our family.

The girls are off to day camp at the Nashville Zoo this week. I’m pretty sure they’ll find a few notes in their lunch boxes this week. Time to start practicing my animal doodles…