We have several snack monsters in the house. They are in the form of small children who are always hungry. Well, there are some medium children now, too, along with all of their friends. It seems that every time I turn around, someone needs a snack, either at home, to be packed for school or to be brought along on outings.
If I counted out all of the minutes that I spend retrieving or preparing snacks for everyone, it would probably be longer than the time I spend waiting in line, or sleeping.
Imagine all of the use that time could be out to for other endeavors. I could be the first mom to discover a cure for the common cold!
With the situation getting out of control, I thought I would implement some strategies to deal with the snack monsters in my home.
One of the practices that seems to be helpful is to have the individually sized snacks already available for the monsters to grab as needed. Some of this can be solved with prepackaged snacks, but prepackaged snacks can present their own problems. for one thing, they can be expensive. For another, they can often be full of preservatives and low in nutrition.
Buying simple and healthy bulk snacks and then packing them myself helps.
I also have a central location for snacks. There is a bin in the refrigerator for snacks that have to be kept cold. The monsters know that they can reach in there to find a healthy snack, such as carrots, grapes or cut apples (a little lemon juice prevents browning).
For snacks that can be kept at regular room temperature, such as pretzel, I’ve established a snack cabinet that can be visited as needed.
Of course some boundaries have to be established, otherwise the snack monsters would eat only snacks and not regular meals. The monsters know that there is no point asking for snacks outside of the times that they are allowed.
Books in The Freezer? Wacky Storage Spaces for the Biblio-Inclined