Lunch date

Being a stay-at-home dad has many advantages. One of which is that I can choose to have lunch with my kids at their school if I so desire. Yesterday, I so desired.

My usual weekday companion and I went to share lunch with my 9 year-old daughter. We signed in at the office and waited patiently for her class to come by. After several minutes of standing around, we met up with them and my 2 girls hugged as if they hadn't seen each other in days. In reality, it had only been a matter of about 3 hours. Nevertheless, it was nice to witness such affection for one another. Our 3 girls all really do care for each other, they're each others' best friend. But just like any other siblings, some days the "hugs" can be substituted with "chokes".

My 4 year-old and I had packed a lunch for ourselves, but the oldest child elected to buy hers on this day. The peculiar looking meat which I later learned was "popcorn chicken" didn't look real appetizing to me. She thought it was wonderful. And at the time of this blog being posted, she has yet to get sick. Yowza.

We sat on the small cafeteria benches and started making small talk. I readied my youngest daughter's lunch and we talked about how everybody's morning had gone. And then a small boy with messy hair sat down across from us. He was more than excited to talk about his day. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him "Bob". Bob was a bit of a nervous high strung child who instantly started rapidly chatting about how he had forgotten many things already that morning.

"I can't believe this! I forgot barbecue sauce. Earlier I forgot my pencil. And guess what else I forgot? My napkins. What is wrong with me?" spouted off Bob.

"Easy there, Bob," I counseled. "We all have one of those days sometimes." I think Bob's parents probably keep an eye on how much sugar he ingests. I fear the poor kid's eyeballs would pop out of his head if he ate a whole bag of Skittles.

Trying to politely avoid further conversation with Bob, I looked at my 2 little girls and thought to myself how quickly time was going by. It didn't seem too long ago that my 3rd grader was in Kindergarten. I had several lunches with her at her school that year. And each time, she would start out sitting next to me. Then, little by little, she'd nestle closer to me until she finally just made her way up onto my lap. I loved the fact that she didn't care one lick about who saw her do it, because as far as she was concerned, it was the natural thing to do.

Fast forward a few years to yesterday. Feeling a bit nostalgic I asked her, "Do you remember how you used to sit on my lap when I ate lunch with you at school?"

For a moment, her eyes kind of widened and she looked at me fearfully. She replied, "No. I did that?"

"Yeah, but don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to do it now. But it was sure nice when you used to." She seemed to sigh with a little bit of relief at the news her father wasn't going to make her look like a baby in front of her friends. Although I don't know if anybody would have even said anything. They all seemed pretty occupied with their chicken popcorn. And Lord knows that Bob had his own issues going on across the table.

When the period was over, we said "good bye" and I gave her a quick kiss. There was a slight hesitation on her part but she didn't seem to mind too much. "I love you, Daddy. Have a good day," she said as she scurried off with the rest of her classmates.

"Thanks, Honey. You too." I reciprocated. "I'll see you after school."

In my mind, the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" started playing. Jackie Paper had just decided to come see Puff no more. I suppose that's a little over-indulgent on my part. But on occasion, certain little moments like this leave a significant impression on me. Maybe it's because I'm getting older or maybe it's just that little girls have that effect on their daddies. It's hard to say.

And then, instead of feeling depressed, I began feeling blessed to have three little girls who I adore. Apparently they dig me as well. Satisfied with that assessment, my 3 1/2ft. tall buddy and I exited the cafeteria. The nostalgic sadness quickly wore off and the rest of the day was great.

Hopefully Bob got his act together as well.