It is early Sunday morning. We head back to school this week, finally! Little Chirp looked deflated when I told him that school was starting again. Brainy Bird appears indifferent. Little Chirp starts junior high, and Brainy Bird starts his senior year of high school.
Mixed emotions fill my heart. We absolutely need to return to our lives. Businesses need to be allowed to fully open, people need to go back to work, and children need to go back to school. There is no question in my mind. Yet, I have to admit that I am going to miss having so much time with the boys. The realization of this hit me when Little Chirp was doing the family meal planning, and he thought we would be at home cooking lunch together all week. He was not happy when I told him that he needed to be planning school lunches.
Little Chirp settled on leftover taco soup for day 1 of school lunches, and bento boxes for day 2 of school lunches. Bento boxes are what we call a little mix of meats, cheeses and pickles. Add bread, and one would call it a sandwich, but Little Chirp does not like sandwiches. I found it endearing that Little Chirp wanted to make Brainy Bird’s lunch the first day. Little Chirp handles his school lunch making responsibility with a great deal of passion. He took over from Brainy Bird mid-year last year. I convinced Little Chirp to yield lunch making to me the first day, and that he can be in charge of this important morning routine for the rest of the year.
Once we had our lunch planning done; we headed to lunch together and then the grocery store. I snuck a couple of small snack sized bags of jelly beans into the cart. I wanted to surprise the boys with the jelly beans and a note in their lunch the first day. We got home, and I got distracted, and I forgot about the jelly beans. Both boys saw them.
I commented, “I normally do a much better job of hiding surprises at the grocery store.“
Little Chirp’s response, “No, you never do, but normally it is not quite so obvious, and we can pretend not to see them and act surprised.“
Doh! It is the little things in life…