Mid-Day Lunch On-the-Run

My family lives a busy life filled with scheduled activities, places to be, and things to do; in spite of our kids being homeschooled, I still like to get away from my desk for a mid-day lunch.

I used to think that homeschooled kids stayed home all day and learned at home, in makeshift classrooms, for six or eight hours a day. Clearly, this past year I’ve learned a lot and my pre-conceived notions of what a “typical homeschooled family” looks like have changed.

The reality is that homeschooling our kids has provided my family with a lot of freedoms I didn’t know we were missing. For example, during my “long” office days, my husband will often decide to do an impromptu lunch at the park outing, where he loads the kids in the car, heads to SUBWAY and picks up a few of their Fresh Fit for Kids Meals, and meets me at the park down the street from the office.

Taking some time away from my desk in the middle of the day clears my head and refuels my spirit since nothing brings me more joy than spending time with my family.

What I love about our lunch-in-the-park days is that my husband takes it upon himself to handle the meal details, including taking all the kids with him to a SUBWAY® restaurant! There they get to make their very own personalized sub, with the help of a Sandwich Artist, by selecting their own protein and crunchy, colorful fresh veggies to fill their 9-grain wheat bread sandwich.

Along with their sandwich, dad makes sure the kids grab their bagged apple slices, that are a part of SUBWAY's Fresh Fit for Kids Meal® The kids are excited that in addition to their meal they get to enjoy an Honest Kids Super Fruit Punch, a newly available organic juice drink at SUBWAY. My kids love Honest Kids juice drinks and as a mom, I feel good that it's sweetened only with organic fruit juice.

At the park, you’ll often find me running behind my kids with a sandwich in one hand and their Honest Kids Fruit Punch on the other. Yes, I’m that mom in the park whose kids take a bite midway through the slide since they rarely go back to the picnic table once they jet off to play.

My husband and my daughter, on the other hand, tend to sit back and eat their food in peace, probably shaking their heads and smiling. By the time I get back to the table, they’ve often eaten what’s left of the boys’ apple slices, and that’s just fine by me. We all know how hard it can be to feed our families balanced meals, at every meal.

It’s the park, and it’s family time; and as Lanette Kovachi MS, RDN and Corporate Dietitian for Subway® restaurants describes it, “we probably will not have a perfectly balanced diet every day, but parents can help by stocking up their kitchens with balanced choices at home and making smart choices when eating on the run.” And eating on the run is exactly what my boys are doing at the park.

After our impromptu lunch and play date, my husband goes back home for a couple of hours to work on assignments or projects while I head back to the office with my emotional tank refueled with happiness. As I sit at my desk working on my own deadlines, I can still hear the squealing laugh that my boys makes when I swing them and pretend to “catch your toes” – and that, my friends, is an hour well spent.

Don’t forget to stop by your local SUBWAY® restaurant on National Sandwich Day – Nov. 3! Buy any sub and drink, you get a second sub free AND a meal will be donated to Feeding America!

This post is sponsored by SUBWAY & Honest Tea. Thank you for supporting me!

Disclosure: From time to time, I work with companies, like SUBWAY, to share stories that are important to me and my readers. Thank you for supporting the brands that encourage me to share my creativity.