Eating Lunch at School

Do you ever go to school and eat lunch with your kids?  Right now, the Second Grader loves for me to come to school for lunch.  I am still super cool...or at least tolerable.  I am hanging onto that for as long as humanly possible.  I ate lunch with him last week and today he asked me to come again, so I did.  Luckily, he hasn't banned me from being seen with him at school, even though there was that hot roller in the hair incident at the bus stop.......and there may or may not have been pajama pants involved.

I like to go to his school.  I am treated like a celebrity.  All the kids want a piece of me.  "Hello Mrs. H!"  "Hi Second Grader's Mom!"  "Oh Oh!  Mrs. H is here!!  Will you sit at our table??"  and on and on.  Of course, they treat all parents like that.  When I get home I turn back into Cinderella (the tattered house cleaner Cinderella) as soon as my glass slipper-free foot hits the front porch. 

Last week lunch was pretty quiet.  We actually got the whole table to ourselves because some of the other kids ate lunch with the teacher.  This week, it wasn't so quiet.  First of all, I had Baby Girl with me.  So, not only am I a celebrity, but, specifically I am like Mr. Roarke with Tattoo. 

What's her name?

Can she talk?

How old is she?

What does she do when she wakes up?

Yes, a kid asked that.  Keep in mind (with all of these questions) that she is almost three.....years, not months.

Back to the story.  Things started out quiet.  Our table was "on green"....that is a good thing.  There was normal second grader lunch time chatter.  Is it Mario Super Sluggers or Mario Super Sludgers?   Do you like to dip your chicken nuggets in your mashed potatoes?  Is that a melted brownie or chocolate pudding?  Hey, watch me lick up my ketchup like a dog!

Then one boy started making a mashed potato volcano sculpture.  He delicately used his straw as a paint brush to apply ketchup lava flows to his masterpiece.  It reminded me of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.....except much louder......and more giggly.  Well, maybe not like Richard at all then.  When he started to show everyone how he could blow a spit ball through his straw powered by chocolate milk, Baby Girl sprung to life.  No one is upstaging her.  She discovered that she could control the entire table by ducking her head under it and watch everyone else do the same.  Parents should have that much power.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Bwahahahaha!  I have you under my spell!  That went on for a few minutes. 

Lunch finally came to a close and everyone started to clear the table.  Everyone except the mashed potato artist.  He was still working on the finishing touches.  The other kids rushed him along when they realized how easily that green plastic cup on the table could be flipped to reveal the yellow or, even worse, the red cup.  No one wants that.

That was my lunch.  I split a Styrofoam tray full of chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and green beans with a three year old who entertained a table of second graders, and vice a versa. Laugh if you will, but when I say I am living the "good life,"  that is what I mean.  I used to eat lunch at my desk and play solitaire.  Yes, it was quiet, but how much longer am I going to get to eat lunch with a table full of eight year olds who actually want me to eat with them?  Who are trying to make me laugh and are fighting over who gets to sit next to me?  Maybe not until I am a grandma.  So, for now, I will enjoy it.