Lunch & Love

It's 4:12 AM, do you know where your children's lunches are? 

I thought I did. 

American Cheese stacked neatly in perfect squares, tucked into it's plastic wrapping, seated alongside the lunchmeat in the drawer.

Soft white bread resting peacefully in the cabinet, each slice leaning against the other in empty carbohydrate camaraderie. 

Fruit snacks lounging in the "snack bin," Dora's and Princesses co-mingling with Spongebob and the gang. 

Cheesesticks lazing on a layer of fresh whole fruit, snuggled in, just waiting to be selected and packed.

But I was wrong.

On the twice nightly trip down the steps to fetch a bottle for the baby,  I had occasion to peer in to the refrigerator. And there I found them.   

Two lunches.

Lovingly prepared by the Monkey Maker who had left for work two hours earlier.

Damn I am one lucky lady.

This man who leaves at 2AM so that he can be available to get Middle Monkey off the bus, took the time, as he does nearly every morning, to prepare lunches that "shoulda, woulda, coulda been prepared and packed the night before by your's truly...He does this.  Takes care of things.  Little things, big things, everything.  Clean the bathrooms, pay the bills, build a fence, cure cancer....you know, the normal stuff.

And when he comes home?  Sleep?  Nah,  not this guy.  He does homework time and spelling tests, reads books and changes diapers.  He holds a screaming baby who refuses to be comforted from a seated position and looks forward to the return of his wife. 

When she gets home?  Sleep?  Nope, not yet.  It's time to fix dinner for the kids, maybe pop a bite or two into his own mouth before heading off to wrestling practice. 

Will he stand along the wall and supervise.  Not a chance. 

He'll don size 13 wrestling shoes and roll around with his kids, and the kids of 50 other parents.

He will coach, mentor, teach, inspire.  He'll set an example of how to be a "good guy."  How to win and lose with grace and dignity. Oh yeah, and how to throw a half-nelson that nobody can escape.

And he's not alone.  The room is full of guys like these.  Not everyone gets up at 2AM and makes the lunches but they ALL put thier children first.  Everyday. 

They are not perfect, FAR from it. 

But they deserve to be commended just the same.

In the world of Mommy Blogging we offer a LOT of support to our fellow mothers but I thought that today, for no particular reason at all, I would take a moment to say thanks to all the hard-working, heavy-lifting, lunch-making Monkey Makers. 

You really, really rock.