My lunchbreak

The sugar hits.

My son's class had an Easter Egg hunt today and at the last minute I thought I'd surprise him by showing up. It was a beautiful day, much like it has been almost everyday since we've been here: 75 and sunny. The egg hunt was held in a local park, filled with delicious pine trees. The set up was this: There was a field of eggs in front of about 50-60 kids, mostly in the 2-3 year-old range. At some point Miss Stephanie said, "Go!" and the kids flung themselves towards the eggs as fast as they could.

Soen seemed much more concerned that I was going to ditch him, however, so he held my hand and walked to the eggs. The episode was a fairly typical example of how we interact. Soen preferred to pick up one egg at a time and open it to see what was inside. Meanwhile, I'm looking around at the competition (who, frankly weren't all that): "Soen, why don't you grab as many eggs as you can and we can look at them later." "Daddy, what's this one?" "That's bubble gum." "I can eat it?" "Sure, buddy, but let's get some more eggs before they're all gone..." In the end, he got about a dozen eggs, which was perfect. Then it was on to the pizza, where all the mommies (and I) tried to get our kids to eat their pizza and not the candy. Not so surprisingly, the mommies were all entirely successful, whereas I--as you can see by this picture, taken moments after Soen popped the aforementioned gum into his mouth--was not. I did manage to keep him to one piece of gum. Well, and four gummy bunnies. But he did eat two pieces of pizza! Eh? Howbout an E for effort?

That would be the end of my story, except for this: After I left Soen to play with his friends, I was eating at this all-you-can-eat buffet. This place is awesome. Two kinds of BBQ--Western and Eastern Carolina, mac & cheese, collards, turnip greens, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, etc. Anyway, I looked up from my meal to see an older woman sitting on the front step of the restaurant with her shoes off, a cane by her side, and her husband standing over her. Moments earlier they were about to get into their car, but now here she was sitting down. Just as I was wondering if I should go out there to help, this older guy got out of his car and approached the husband in a familiar way. He then squatted down and started examining the woman's feet. I figured it was their doctor.

I got up, left a tip, and headed out of the restaurant. Once outside, saw that the woman was now standing up--without her cane (or shoes)--and saying, "Praise Jesus!" And her husband was shaking the older man's hand, saying, "Thank you, sir. Thank you."

Wow. All you can eat BBQ, a tall glass of sweet tea, and a healing for just $8.52. Pretty good deal if you ask me.