The Best Breakfast Meeting

I am an early riser in the morning. I like to get up and get moving early. Three days a week I am in the gym at 5:45am (I only enjoy it AFTER I am finished with my attempt to stay healthy and am having my morning coffee at the office) and the other two days I try and set aside to have breakfast meetings with different people.

Over the last few weeks my normal Thursday meeting has not been able to make it and so I have set up a breakfast meeting at 7am with my 4th grade son. It has been great! His alarm goes off at 6:30am and we are eating breakfast by a little after 7am.

I think I have found a new connection point with my son. He loves to get up early and get moving if he knows we are going to breakfast before school. With our crazy afternoon schedules of practice, homework, work and two younger siblings who also need attention, this has become a great 45 minutes of talking and hanging out.

All around us are adults having breakfast meetings. Some of them seem to be very important gatherings. Lap tops and day timers are out. Calendars are discussed and strategies analyzed. This morning Peyton noticed that he was the only kid in the place.

At that moment I had a calm assurance that I was having the best breakfast meeting in the restaurant. What did we talk about? We talked about his homework, his school day ahead, the fact that recess will probably have to be inside today because of the rain, his football practice tonight and what new state we will discover together next summer on vacation. Nothing earth shattering or some theological outline of the omniscient and transcendent nature of God and how God wants him to act today.....But it was a great meeting!

I know many of us as parents have crazy schedules these days. However, we must find time for these kinds of "weekly" moments with our kids. I know I always seem to have time to meet for breakfast with other people. These days, I am meeting once a week with my son. You may have to get up early or maybe the mornings won't work for you so you will need to go somewhere late.....but I am more aware these days that as our kids get older, we must set aside time for a little one on one.