An Important Day for My Son

Today my son woke up and got dressed. When he came downstairs, he had on his Ralph Lauren sweater that I bought him that he promised that he would wear 2 times a month. He actually told me that in the check out line.
I remember the conversation:

Me: If I buy this, will you wear it?
Son: Yes.
Me: You will?
Son: Yeah I will. I might wear it like 2 times a month.


Well, here we are, nearly the end of the winter, and I think he wore that sweater once. To his credit, it WAS a mild winter.

But when I saw him this morning wearing his sweater, I knew today was a special day for him. Last week, he wrote an essay on why he should be picked to eat lunch with the author, Dan Greenburg, who was visiting his school today. The "contest" was opened to the students in grades 3-5 that are on Student Council. 8 students were chosen and Riley was one of them.

Riley was very honored to be the few chosen. He is an author himself. He has maintained his own blog since 2nd grade, written in a journal since 1st grade, and published his own neighborhood newspaper this year as a 4th grader. Meeting a "real life" author was important to him, I could tell, by just looking at him and seeing him all dressed up.

He had written a list of questions to ask Mr. Greenburg. When I asked him what his favorite part of his presentation was afterschool today, he said, "Everything." Typical 9-year old answer. Either it's "Nothing," or "Everything." He liked how Mr. Greenburg's wife was at the school-wide presentation, and later on, at the intimate luncheon. I asked what Mr. Greenburg had for lunch, and Riley said he had had a salad. Riley said that he got to sit on one side of Mr. Greenburg while his wife sat on the other. He was very proud of that.

I got very little answers from my quiet son about his day, but I hope that his luncheon with a famous author will give him lots to write about in his journal, blog and maybe an article in his newspaper.