Bullies at the Lunch Table, Love Notes and Laundry

So at school one day recently, our son was eating his lunch and talking with his friends, when a not-so-very-nice boy down at the end started talkin' smack.

He was trying to find whatever he could do to belittle others at the table to try and make himself look big, bad and tough.

The boy elbowed his friend and points to Jericho's lunch bag. "Ha ha...look at that! It's a love note from his mommy!" They started laughing.

My son, just learning to 'hold his own' among kids like that, was quick with a comeback. "Yeah? So what?" He paused for effect. "I think you're just jealous 'cuz I have a mom that loves me!"

(I'm pretty sure there was a little bobble-headed body language and some puffing out of the chest involved here, too.)

The boy and his friend fell silent at those words, the truth having apparently met the mark.

(Probably not the kindest retort on the part of my son, I'll admit, and it's not something we'd normally endorse, but sometimes the bully-types need to know not everyone is going to knuckle under when they taunt.)

The boys got up and left, and haven't bothered my son since.

The above was the story that accompanied our discovery of these in the laundry pile.

Folded up lunch sacks.

"Why do you have all these lunch bags in your pockets?" my husband asked.

Jericho got a sheepish look on his face. "I was saving them."

"You don't have to bring them home with you. That's why we give you paper sacks for your lunches...so you can just toss it all at school."

"I know," he said, "but those ones had special notes from mom on them."

Awwwwww.

After I sufficiently made over him for that one (and took a picture of the lunch bags he'd saved), he asked the inevitable, "Let me guess...you're going to blog about it."

And of course I did.