Yesterday, my youngest son wanted to go to McDonald's. Although I tried to convince him to pick any restaurant besides McDonald's, I knew it was a losing battle. His craving for chicken nuggets and french fries was far beyond any form of rational thinking.
As we sat in a big, comfy, bar-height booth, in actually a fairly nicely decorated fast food restaurant, my son snacked on a ten piece chicken nugget while peeling off the deep fried batter.
We talked about school and friends, and reminisced the times only he and I went to McDonald's when the other kids were in school. He tried my grilled chicken off my southwest salad, agreed it was slimy, and announced the overcooked chicken nuggets had too much batter.
As I watched him confidently walk up to the counter to order dessert for the two of us, I thought of the kindergartner I once brought to the same place, and we sat in the same booth. I remembered how he thought McDonald's chicken nuggets were the greatest food in the world. As my preteen walked back to the table, dessert tray in hand with a hot fudge sundae for me, and an Oreo McFlurry for himself, he was smiling.
He knows eating ice cream is a splurge for me and wondered aloud why I would pick a hot fudge McDonald's sundae to eat. I smiled, laughed, and said, because it makes me happy. He smiled back, pointed out he never had a McDonald's hot fudge sundae, and asked to try mine.
I shared my sundae with him.
Right before he went to sleep that night, he told me he had a good day, and the highlight was sharing the hot fudge sundae with me. I told him it was the best part of my day also.
