February 2009: Muffins with Mom

First off, if you haven't had a chance to take my poll and read "You are needed!", I would really appreciate your input!:-)

Owen's school has a fun annual event, Muffins with Mom, in which Owen and I enjoy breakfast together in the school cafeteria. I do have to say that I am jealous of Mike's event, Donuts with Dad. I am much more a donut person:-) Here I am with my darling boys before Owen and I leave for school.

Owen has a hollow leg. We cannot believe how much he eats. We have to monitor him or he'll eat himself sick. He can never commit to having a favorite anything, but I think his favorite thing to consume is chocolate milk. His face lights up anytime he hears the words and the characters in the stories he writes or in pictures he draws seem to always end up with chocolate milk. He drank 2 cups of chocolate milk and almost 2 whole muffins-we're talking Costco muffins. Sometimes Owen seems so "old" to me because he is my oldest and because he's so dang smart. I forget that he's the cute, short little 1st grader with the oversized backpack.

After the breakfast, he tenderly said "goodbye" to me and then went off towards the playground. I went back to my car and drove around to the back of the school where the playground is. The breakfast was before the normal school hours, so there were only a few kids on the playground. I parked my car and watched my sweet little boy run out onto the playground by himself. Mike and I wonder when this "run everywhere" phase of his will end. As soon as he steps out of the car to go to school in the morning, it automatically converts into a sprint. Its got to be those "fast shoes" he has.

That morning I watched him decide where he was going to play first. I saw him find where his class line would be and put down his new Lightning McQueen backpack. I watched him take off his jacket, only to put it back on again moments later. It made me chuckle because we go through this you're-going-to-wear-a-jacket-today scene almost every morning because of course "I'm not going to be cold Mom". Then I watched him sprint over to the playset -jacket on- to begin his school day. I lost sight of him and decided to leave. I'm not sure when it will stop for me, but I get a little pull on my heart strings every morning I watch him enter those school gates. Days like this, when I have a moment to just stop and think about my little boy are too far in between.