Kid Breakfasts on the Go: the 3 P's

I HATE to wake young kids up in the morning. I'm a big believer in sleep. My daughter has a nice 25 minute commute to school in the morning: plenty of time to eat breakfast in the car. I normally champion sitting down to meals, but this time, I've embraced the breakfast on the go. With a little creativity and Tupperware, you can feed kids a pretty ordinary breakfast. She eats lunch about 3 hours after she eats breakfast (or starts eating breakfast), so I'm not worried about her needing a really big breakfast. I make sure each breakfast has the following components:

• protein: a must. (yogurt, cheese, nuts, etc.)
• produce: most of the time. I try to work it into the other menu items unless I have a banana on hand to give her
• portable: it can't be too difficult to eat in the car (don't want her arriving with food all over her!)

Here are some of the portable breakfasts that have worked well for us:

• breakfast trail mix (dry cereal, dried fruit, nuts--optional); paired with yogurt if no nuts
• oatmeal made with raisins or Craisins or apples and nuts (especially nice on these cold mornings!)
• mini bagel with cream cheese plus yogurt or fruit smoothie
• muffins with cheese stick or yogurt or fruit smoothie

My sister has talked about getting my daughter a travel mug; then we could send her with hot chocolate and a starch. Another warm option for these cold mornings!