Go to lunch with your kids

Yesterday was a big day for my 8 year old Joshua. He had been asking me for the last 2 weeks to come and have lunch with him at school. I kept saying, "we'll see," which is the parent way of saying 'you're not important enough for me to log you into my calendar.' Finally, I realized that this was a big deal to him, so last week I said, "Joshua, I can't do it this week, but let's sit down and look at my calendar and figure out when I can do it next week. We looked, found an opening on Thursday and I wrote it in:

Lunch with Joshua at school.

He smiled and that was the end of it...until Wednesday evening when I reminded him that 'tomorrow is the big day'. He was so excited, gave me a hug, and told me to remind Mom not to pack his lunch, since I'd be bringing him MacDonald's.

When I got to school yesterday, it was obvious that the kids had been talking to each other that Joshua's dad was coming to lunch with him, because there were 3 other dads and one mom there - all having lunch with their kids.

"That's Brittany, that's Cynthia, that one over there is Brandon and that guy is Michael..." One by one, Joshua pointed out his friends by name. "She's new and I was in his class last year. See that teacher over there? She acts mean, but she's really nice." On and on he went, talking excitedly about his world for over half an hour.

Somewhere in there, I realized that this was a really big deal to him. So I said, "Joshua, how'd you like to do this every month?" He was excited. So, I pulled out my blackberry and we picked a date in October, November and December - each time I wrote, "Lunch with Joshua" while he watched. He had made Dad's schedule - which apparently is significant.

Last night, we all met up at home and, out of the blue he asked, "Dad, you think we could do that twice a month?"

You bet, Joshua. You bet.