only 50 more fridays.....

before mary peyton was born, my mother in law and i started a tradition of going to eat lunch together on fridays. most of these lunches were at bon ami in jackson.

when mary peyton was born, we decided to continue the friday lunches when she was about 2 weeks old. patty was always our waitress and would know what we wanted as soon as we came in. mrs mona would be at the table and would carry mary peyton around to show her off to other customers. it felt like home. like a friend i was supposed to see on friday.

when mary peyton was about 16 months old, my mother in law changed jobs. and with this came more strict lunch hours, etc. so our several year old tradition came to a halt.

i decided, though, that i wanted to continue this with mary peyton. to set aside fridays for us to have some girl time. time to talk, eat somewhere (most of the time) that daddy won't eat with us, and just be friends (yes, i understand that i am her parent first, but to an extent, i want to be her friend, too - but NEVER compromising the parenting aspect of our relationship).

when she started K3, i was a little sad at first. school is monday - friday. BUT - she would be getting out at 11:30, so we would still be able to go wherever she wanted to go. i decided to let her choose - not to just decide for her.

here are a few of our favorites:

obviously, bon ami...

then, mary peyton also LOVES little tokyo...

another favorite is brent's drugs...

we have continued this tradition for 5 years. all of a sudden this morning, it hit me that this time next year, my baby will be in school until 3:00. already? it seemed like we were always going to have "our" fridays!

i'll be honest, i'm not looking forward to it. i've dealt with her growing up just fine, but now that it's going to end our friday special times, i don't like it one bit! our fridays have been our girly days. days we shop, eat, go to the movies at the drop of a hat, go to barnes and noble for coffee and reading, or just whatever comes to mind. oh how i will miss them!

but we always have the summers! thank goodness!

so until next august, i'm going to take advantage of the next 50. as often as we can, we will do whatever comes to mind that sounds fun. again, the quote that i say so often comes back to mind....."the days are long, but the years are short". this is so unbelievably true.

thank you, Lord, for the fun you have allowed mary peyton and i to have over the past five years! and i look forward to many more!

{mp and me on one of our bon ami lunch dates this summer}