Making Lunch Special

My kids would love lunch from a restaurant every day. Seriously. I think if I just alternated fast food restaurants, they could eat them endlessly. (In case you’re worried about us, we don’t actually indulge this wish.)

However, today they did have lunch from a restaurant. It just so happens that I was the waitress and the cook.

You see, I was getting ready to offer them up some of the choices that they usually get for lunch — a few types of sandwiches and the like. I thought, “They won’t be overly excited, but that’s just what’s for lunch.”

But, then, I stood up straight, held my hands in a way that indicated I was going to write on a pretend piece of paper, looked at them and said, “Well, hello, folks. Thanks so much for coming in to the restaurant today. Can I tell you our specials?”

I gave them the entree specials, as well as what their side dish options were. I took an order from each of the children, calling them sir and ma’am as I took their order, and commenting on each selection, “Oh yes, the string cheese here is very good.” I also took an order from each of them for their guest that was joining them (they each grabbed a stuffed animal or action figure).

I prepared their plates and small bowls of “goodies” for their guests. As I brought out their plates, I would say, “Okay, now, sir, you had the peanut butter and jelly, correct?”

They loved it. Loved it.

I’ve done this with them before (probably almost a year ago), and they loved it just as much then too.

For dessert, I put samples of candy and gummy snacks on a plate and brought it out a la waitress style (plate flat on my hand, arm up in the air). They liked this best. I let them verbally tell me what they wanted, and then whisked away, only to come back with their choices.

As far as I’m concerned, not only was this a frugal lunch option, but based on each child thanking me about five times for a fun lunch, it was one of those finer things in life too!

This post is linked to Frugal Fridays and Finer Things Friday (links above).