Lunch Mom

Today I was the lunch mom. I still suffer from Empty Nest Syndrome (I know, whine, whine, whine) so when I heard that Shana was coming home to lead one of her Workshop programs, I immediately signed up to bring lunch. I love hanging out with these kids. They work so hard all year. Summers are intense, but things keep going all year long with the one day refresher programs - Back-to-School, Powerhouse for boys, Girlwise for girls, helping the teens make adjustments to some of the things they learned over the summer after facing some real world stressors during the new school year -  www.orho.org.

And as a non-profit with about a hundred 16 - 25 year old peer leaders, they always need food. Today the number was closer to 40, but I wanted to be prepared. I asked Shana to help me with the menu. She said "just no pizza or Paradise Cafe - that's all we eat all summer." We decided on a brunch menu for the 10:45 rush of kids - eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, yogurt, juice, apples, bagels, cream cheese, muffins. As I kept shopping over the past couple of days and filled up practically two refrigerators (after plugging in the very hot one in the garage just for the occasion), Shana kept saying that they could never eat all that food, that I was going overboard. But I didn't want to run out, didn't want anybody to go hungry. After all, how often to I get to do this anymore? I'm never in charge of snacks for the classroom anymore, no more cases of granola bars for the softball games, no more thirty cupcakes for the school birthday parties, no more science fair project groups showing up in my kitchen after school, starving.

So I actually bought juice boxes for the first time in years and smiled as these big kids stuck in the little straws and came back for more. Shawn toasted the bagels while Shana and our extra daughter, Maddie, supervised. I  just took it all in, eating up each and every "thank you, Mrs. Sullivan" until Shawn and I had to leave them to their preparations for the at least 60 kids who would show up later.

Shana was right, I did go too far. I've got a ton of leftovers. But at least the extra fridge is still plugged in. You never know when I'll be in the mood for a juice box.