First Grade Lunch

I had lunch with my son and his first grade class, yesterday. I had visited him two or three times during his kindergarten year, but this is the first time this year. It was a surprise for him, and though he normally doesn’t like to be surprised (he likes to know what’s going to happen next), he was very happy to see me standing at the cafeteria door when his class came walking down the hall in a nice, quiet line.

I held the door open for the class, and he stopped and stood with me. Twice, he announced, “This is my dad,” to his friends as they filed by us. When everyone was in the big room, he grabbed my hand and led me to their section of the tables. He had a big smile on his face, and it made me feel real good that he was so happy to have me with him.

He always brings his lunch, in his soft, red lunch case (not really a “box”), so we took a seat immediately. A couple of his friends went through the food line, but soon the whole class was seated and eating and talking and being silly 6 year olds.

They have terrible table manners. Talking with their mouth full, dropping crumbs and liquid everywhere. It was good to see that it wasn’t just my 6 year old who acted like that. Although, they seemed pretty good about taking their paper and plastic trash to the garbage cans.

One kid was obviously the class clown. He was up, down, all around the table, cracking silly “jokes,” getting everyone to laugh, and generally the being a big disruption. The noise in the whole cafeteria is as you would expect it to be: loud. The “cafeteria monitors” (teachers with lunch room duty) would come by occasionally and quiet the noisiest kids or crowds. One boy told me, “That’s Mrs. ~. She always comes by and gets us in trouble for no reason.”

The cafeteria workers were all middle-age women. About half looked like the stereotypical “lunch lady” we all picture in our minds, but the other half distinctly did not.

The lunch food was served on white plastic-foam plates, and today’s menu was burgers and french fries. I saw one kid open his cheeseburger and place several fries on the meat, then added ketchup, and then put the bun back on top. You know, that’s not a bad idea. I might have to try that recipe the next time I have a burger and fries. But he then added more ketchup to the top of the bun, and so when he tried to eat the sandwich, he got the mess all over his hands. I’ll learn from that mistake and just keep the ketchup on the inside of the sandwich.

It’s interesting to note that the kids segregated themselves into boy tables and girl tables. Last year, when I visited his kindergarten lunch, the boys and girls mingled. My son’s “girlfriend” always sat beside him, and all the tables were gender mixed. But this year, they are definitely keeping to their own gender for lunch companionship.

When their 30 minute time was almost up, the cafeteria monitors rounded the class up and had them stand to the side in a line. I said good-bye to my son and went to stand by the exit to watch them leave. I held the door open as they came through, and my son again stood by me until everyone was out. He gave me a big hug and said, “Thanks for coming Dad.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com