When I look at the lunch menu for my son's school, I feel safe in assuming that any kid who brings a lunch from home is getting better nutrition. After all, it's not hard to beat chicken nuggets and greasy pizza. But home-packed lunches aren't always the better deal.

Due to rising food costs, regulations for Texas day-care centers recently changed and now allow the centers to require parents to send meals and snacks for the children. A subsequent (albeit small) study found that 71 percent of the home-packed meals didn't have enough fruits or vegetables and the number of milk servings was also low.

When you're busy getting the kids ready for school and trying to get ready for work, sometimes convenience takes priority when packing your kids lunches. But nutrition can be convenient, too. You can't get much easier than a ready-to-eat piece of fruit. And you can pre-cut carrots, celery, cucumbers and other veggies at the beginning or the week so they're ready and waiting. Check out the gallery for other quick, easy and healthful foods for your child's lunch bag.

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One of my nephews sneered at broccoli until my sister started calling it a "tree" -- all of a sudden, broccoli was interesting.

Sometimes, parents have to resort to little tricks to get their picky eaters to try new foods. The food pyramid folks realize this and now, there's a special pyramid designed just for preschoolers. Not only does this new pyramid outline the proper amounts of foods kids need, it also aims to help parents with the little picky eaters in the house.

In addition to helpful tools like a growth chart, sample meal plans and kitchen activities for preschoolers, the MyPyramid for Preschoolers site gives tips for breaking the picky-eating problem. Some suggestions:

• Set a good example by eating healthfully
• Offer a variety of foods ... and keep offering them
• Start with small portions.
  

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I typically like to address my Stress Less installments to everyone, but this one is for parents of preschoolers who are potty training. That's because I've noticed potty training tends to cause the most stress amongst my fellow parental cohorts. I'm not going to offer magic tricks for how to get your kids to use the potty. But I will aim to ease minds about doing so in public restrooms.

I actually find it strange that parents allow their kids to romp without a care on pesticide laden grass in public parks, identified as such with those handy little flags, but freak out if their child touches anything in a public restroom. Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat and they teach their kids to do the same. But in an ABC News test, the toilet turned out to be the cleanest thing in the public restroom. As the subsequent report points out, you're not going to get germs from your backside. You're going to get them from your hands.

There really is little need to worry anyway. At least not about genital herpes or HIV. But you might worry about staph infections. It's possible to contract an infection from potty seats, but it's not as likely as you might think. The bottom line: as long as you wash your hands after a trip to the bathroom, you and your kids will likely never acquire anything by way of the public potty.

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My preschooler happily gets herself dressed every morning, being a girl who loves clothes. Sometimes, she comes down in an outfit that goes together -- a basketball t-shirt with yoga pants, cords with a matching sweater, a dress with appropriately colored tights. And sometimes, well, her outfits are a little hard on the eyes. But, we have a deal. She lets me sleep an extra 10 minutes and I don't tell her what to wear. It works for us.

I can only imagine what mornings would be like if she went to this preschool in Sweden. The school banned preschool children from wearing clothing with stripes or spots, because the patterns trigger migraines in one of the teachers. Instead, children are asked to wear clothing of all one color. The ban has been in place for three years, but parents are challenging it this year because they think it's unfair.

We adore our preschool teacher, so I'd be happy to pick out a few monochromatic outfits for school clothes if it meant protecting her health. But boy, would it put a damper on the fun for my kiddo. What about you? Appropriate rule, or going overboard?

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In what should come as no surprise to most, a new study shows that sweet drinks (aka, soft drinks and more) at snack time and right before bedtime are making preschool-age children fatter.

Should two to four year-olds even be drinking sugary drinks? That's a decision every parent will have to make for themselves, but with so much sugar in all of these drinks, it's probably not a good idea for anyone to drink them -- including toddlers.

When preschoolers drink these products, the Canadian study stated that they would be twice as likely to be overweight by age four-and-a-half. Nothing like going into preschool already overweight, huh?

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