Meals were an intimate affair, with all six students chowing down together, and Jenni came home begging for the prepackaged sets of lunch meats, cheese and crackers.

"We went and priced them, and she cried because she couldn't get them," says her mother, Monica.

Then Monica came up with an idea. She got out her cookie cutters and some sectional Tupperware containers, and invited Jenni to help her make a homemade Lunchable. Monica went so far as to write "Momable" on the plastic lid with permanent marker.

The result made such a splash at school that Jenni was instantly won over--and Monica was fielding calls from other parents, wondering where they, too, could buy Momables.