My children attend Pavilion Central School, where a lunch ticket costs $12 and serves 10 lunches. I priced it out a while ago - for a sandwich, side, fruit, dessert and beverage I can hardly beat that price. And I like that my kids are having varied lunches with nutritional content.

So imagine my surprise when I find out, a month into school, that my littlest one has been ordering jelly sandwiches. Every. Single. Day.

Grrr.

Turns out her friend always orders jelly, so she does too. She wants to be like her friend. Okay, I get that. But how do I break her from the habit without making me or the friend into a monster?

While thinking about lunches, I realized that I often wander around the kitchen wondering what to put together for my own lunch. I figured out a way to solve both problems together - I started eating off the school lunch menu.

The school is serving chicken nuggets, fries, fruit and cake -- I'm eating chicken nuggets, fruit and a packaged snack cake. School has meatball subs -- I'm having sliced meatball or meatloaf sandwich. Small differences, but close enough.

I tell my kids that I'm eating 'with' them and thinking of them at lunch time, which is true.

Lo and behold, my youngest is now ordering the main lunch on a regular basis. She comes home and asks what I had for lunch, excited that she ate what Mommy ate and interested in which fruit I picked and what flavor my cake was. Small stuff, but fun for a five year old. Both kids tell me they're thinking about me at lunchtime, which they like.

And this has added benefits. Not only am I getting the kids to eat better, I'm finding that I'm eating better as well. The food is simple and not exactly health food - hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pizza - but where I might have originally grabbed a couple slices of pizza, a candy bar and a soda, I'm now grabbing a slice of pizza, some fruit, Jello and juice or milk. It's not going to rock my world - or my bathroom scale - but even little changes can count when you do them every day.

Success!