With the kids back in school, the biggest benefit to busy parents is settling back into a nice routine.

However, school also brings the dilemma of packing daily lunches. The morning rush is difficult enough, with showers, breakfast and last-minute scrambling to find the soccer cleats and get kids out the door and yourself off to work. It can be tempting to throw in convenient but poor nutritional choices, just because they’re fast. But quick and healthy doesn’t have to be an oxymoron. A few simple organizing tips can put you on the path to packing healthy lunches efficiently.

Alicia on “Lists & Limits”:

Successful lunches start with successful grocery shopping. Go to the store with a shopping list, a full stomach and, if possible, without the kids. In a previous career, I worked as a marketer in the food industry. Unfortunately, it is true that the food industry targets children with fun characters and strategic eye-level shelving. The items most aggressively marketed to children are often ones high in sugar and fat, and they’re much easier to avoid if you don’t have a 4-year-old latched onto your leg screaming for those sugary, fatty, super-special cartoon-character treats.

Prepackaged treats also take a large toll on your wallet, as they are premium-priced. That said, eliminating treats altogether often backfires. Instead of banning foods, help your children learn moderation. Offer them the choice of one indulgent item for lunches each week, whether it be a Rice Krispy Treat, a mini-bar of chocolate or something else. Limit them to just one.

Sarah on “An Apple a Day”:

The school cafeteria can be a minefield for parents trying to instill healthful eating habits. You may hear “But Timmy gets a full-sized candy bar in his lunch” or “Jenny eats pizza every day. Why can’t I?” Even worse: “I traded my orange for three chocolate-chip cookies today!” We have to lead by example. If your children see that you are healthy and have good eating habits, they will be inclined to follow in your footsteps. It also helps to encourage activities and emphasize that a healthy body works better than a junk-food body. For example, if your child loves to play softball, explain how the protein and carbs in a peanut-butter sandwich made with wheat bread will help improve pitching. Children respond positively to explanations. The more they understand about a healthy body, the more they will want to eat healthful foods.

Making lunch preparation less stressful:

#1: Start on Sunday
Prepare as many of the lunch items as possible for the coming week — and enlist your children’s help. That means having older kids slice carrots or watermelon or having younger kids wash the fruits and veggies. All can help make trail mix and then divide it among individual bags. Anything you can get ready at the beginning of the week will make mornings go more smoothly.

# 2: Have a morning checklist
Post a lunch checklist on the fridge for each child to review each morning. Have four or five items, such as “milk/juice, fruit, sandwich, veggie, treat.” Get youngsters to help pack their lunches. This will take the item off your morning to-do list and give them a sense of independence.

#3: Make healthy fun
The more appealing the food, the more likely your child will eat it. Alicia’s daughter Lucy dislikes milk, but she drinks it every day when it’s packed in her Hannah Montana thermos. There are ways to make healthy food more fun, such as cutting watermelon slices into stars with a cookie cutter.

You know who you are. You’re not necessarily a messy person, in fact – your house is probably neat orderly with most things put away and in their place.

But when it comes to the car…..it’s like a rolling dump. Yup, you’re a Car Slob. Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone needs an outlet for clutter and if yours is the car, we can help.

Alicia on how to know if you are a car slob

Ever have to pick up your boss in your rolling pig-pen and think to yourself, “I’ve got to get this under control!” Do you constantly have to apologize to people before giving them a ride? Are you frantically picking up old Cheerios and empty soda cans before letting passengers in?

It often starts out small with a few dirty Kleenexes on the floor and a pile of CD cases in the back seat. Like all clutter, though, it quickly mutates, growing with every day and soon is out of control. Before you know it, you’ve got trash and crumbs in every corner, last week’s newspapers and books to return to the library floating in the back seat, and an extra bottle of water (or five) rolling around the floorboards.

Sarah on controlling the mess

The Car Slob can be contained. For some immediate gratification, grab a big garbage bag and a dust buster, go straight to your car (after finishing this article of course!) and throw out the trash. Chances are that’ll solve 70% of your issue right there.

Once you’ve done the purging, you need to do small things on a regular basis to keep the mess at bay. The surefire way to do this is to set up strict rules for no eating or drinking in the car and for everyone to clean up after their ride. But that’s seriously un-fun, and definitely not worth the nagging and complaining from fellow passengers!

Ways to Tame Car Clutter

You may never completely stop using the car as a ‘slob’ outlet, but you can follow these tips to prevent the mess from growing out of control.

#1: Oh I Love Trash

The number one enemy of car organization is trash. It starts with a scrap of paper like a receipt or dry cleaning tag – and once there’s a little bit of trash – it’s permission for there to be a lot of trash in the car. Fight it by putting 3 or 4 mini bags in your car (whatever works for you – a real trash bag or mini sandwich bags). Put one in the glove compartment, one in each back seat and one in the trunk, so there’s a place to immediately throw trash away instead of letting it drop to the floor. Then, each time you go to the gas station, throw out the accumulating garbage.

#2: Get a CAM

Run out a buy a CAM, a box, bag, or plastic ‘doohickey’ to Contain All of the Mess. The CAM is the catch all for things you need and want, but if left unattended will run wild and take over your car space. Perfect CAM items include CDs, Kleenex, toys for the kids, cell phone chargers and loose change.

#3: Make the Most of Your Glove Compartment

Of course, this should be where you keep your most important car things like the registration, proof of insurance, smog certification and maintenance records. Then, if you have room it’s also the perfect spot for a small pad of paper, a pen, a $20 bill, some extra napkins, and a flashlight.

Why is that that the only time we think to get prepared is when disaster is breathing down our necks?

So often we hear about hurricanes, fires or other disasters and think, ‘I should really put a few things together in case of an emergency,’ but never actually get around to doing anything about it. It’s a universal problem driven by two things. First, for many of us, it’s difficult to be sure of what is needed or how to put it together. And second, the thought of something bad happening to our loved ones is often too difficult to consider. These are fears worth overcoming.

Alicia on the importance of getting informed

The most important step in getting prepared is to read up on the topic. There are many websites out there that can help you wrap your head around what exactly you need to get ready for anything. One of the best web sites for this is The Department of Homeland Security at http://www.ready.gov/america/index.html. We recommend that you spend enough time on the site to gain the confidence you need to get started.

Pay particular attention to the following areas:
1. Assembling a kit of emergency supplies — what’s necessary and what’s not?
2. Making an emergency plan — what are the important components of a plan?
3. Preparing for communication gaps — where should you look for important directives and how to you stay in touch if phones aren’t working?

Sarah on getting it done

One way to make the entire task seem less daunting is to keep in mind that it will take you less than 3 hours to get prepared for the unexpected. That’s right, isn’t your family’s safety worth one night of prime time TV? And if that still seems overwhelming, break it up into smaller bite-sized pieces. Assign one week as ‘emergency preparedness week’ and have your family spend 30 minutes a night (ideally right before or after dinner) going through the steps together. Once everyone agrees on what to do, write it down and post it in the house. Think of how much worry this will save you all down the line.

These three tips are designed to help you get the basics in order.

#1: Remember the ‘Big 4′
Water, food, cash and a first aid kit are the foundation of any emergency kit. Make sure you have enough of each of these things to last each person in the house at least 5 days. Imagine how much suffering could have been avoided in the recent hurricanes if people had prepared a family emergency kit stocked with these amenities.

#2: Engage the Entire Family
Getting prepared should be a family event, not a burden for one person to carry. It’s in everybody’s best interest to know what’s been done and to be invested in the process. Make sure each family member has a job to do and encourage them to get it done within a week. One person can buy flashlights, a whistle and lots of batteries, another can find a radio (battery operated) in the house and make sure it still works, and someone else can clear out space in the pantry, garage or basement to store all of the emergency supplies.

#3: Get ‘Extras’
Think about any items that are critical to you and that may not be easy to get for a few days in an emergency and have extras on hand. Some important things to consider are prescription medicines taken regularly, glasses and contact lenses including saline solution and contact case, and baby items such as formula and diapers.