Up until two or three weeks ago, I could not guarantee that Peter and Lucy would eat a sandwich if I were to pack one for them. In fact, I could almost guarantee that they wouldn't eat the sandwich - that Lucy would lick the peanut butter from the inside and leave the bread behind, and that Peter would eat the sandwich as a matter of last resort, but would probably prefer to scavenge for car-floor-food than to eat the sandwich itself.*
Now, they not only eat sandwiches but request them.
The secret? Goodness knows - the tastes of the preschool set are mercurial - but a stash of cute cookie cutters may have won them over. I've started cutting their sandwiches in all sorts of shapes - trains and dinosaurs and something they insist is a "pink submarine" but really is a heart pierced by an arrow.
We started this after spotting friends with fish shaped sandwiches! Have you ever seen such a thing? We hadn't, and little gears kicked into action, figuring out how they could get cool-shaped sandwiches, too. (Never mind the fact that they don't eat sandwiches!) We realized cookie cutters would be perfect, and thankfully the promise of a train sandwich was more attractive than a fancy pre-made fish sandwich.
The major drawback is that our homemade bread just isn't tall enough for the cookie cutters. There's often a T-rex without a tail or a train without a smokestack. It's not caused problems...yet.
Sometimes, I don't let them have the tops to their sandwich - they're kind of grain junkies, these two - and that's OK too. Messy, but OK.
*The abundance of nuts and other snacks on the floor suggests that whatever creature found its way into our car last winter has left. Also, the abundance of nuts and other snacks on the floor suggests that we're currently courting another woodland guest.
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