My Wednesday Lunch Date

I've been trying to eat lunch at school with my second grade daughter more often. When she was in kindergarten and first grade I had lunch with her three or four times a year.  My goal was to do it twice a month, but it's been every week. Every Wednesday after work. It works out perfectly. I get out at 11:30 and she starts lunch at 11:30. The school is about a half mile from where I work. We usually have about 15 minutes together, but it's enough. Enough to see her smile when I walk into the cafeteria with the other three kids, enough to listen to her talk and enough for me to say "hi" to her friends and get to know them better. I wish I would have made that more of a priority two years ago when she started going to school. I told myself it was too much trouble to take all the kids to school during nap time. I read a book a while ago called "Going Public". It's an excellent book about parenting and having kids in a public school. I recommend it to anyone with kids regardless of where they attend. The main point of the book is how parents should be as involved as they can in their child's school life, by getting to know their friends, teachers, spending time in the class room, volunteering, etc. The thing that really hit me was that the couple writing the book had eight kids! I was using the "I have a lot of kids it's too much trouble excuse" with four. She asked me all the time to have lunch with her, and I would always tell her it's too hard with the kids. She understood. I went to public school when I was in second grade. I'm still friends with my best friend from that year. I remember the boy I liked and the group of kids I played with. Chances are she will too. Do I want her to have memories of her mom not wanting to take the trouble to eat lunch with her at school or do I want her to have memories of her mom, brothers and sister going out of their way to spend a few minutes with someone they love. I told my husband I was going to try to have lunch with her on Wednesdays. She overheard me and now expects it. She's the one keeping me accountable. I spend about fifteen minutes one day a week with her at school, and even though we really don't talk about anything important and sometimes the baby screams and gets everyone's attention, I can tell she's happy we're there and proud to show me her friends and classroom. How could I have been so selfish...