Why I'll be eating dinner at McDonald's tonight.

Last Tuesday a note came home in Peter's agenda. It said "Don't Forget! Thursday night is Chick-Fil-A Night!"

That's nice, I thought to myself.

I asked Peter about his day and all he could tell me was that the Chick-Fil-A cow had been in the cafeteria at lunch shaking hands and giving out high fives.

That's nice, I thought to myself.

"So can we go?" Peter asked.

"Go where?" I asked.

"To Chick-fil-A night. Can we? Can we?" Peter begged.

"I don't think so, honey," was my reply and I didn't think another thing about Chick-fil-A night. Until Wednesday.

Because on Wednesday after school, Peter mentioned Chick-fil-A night again. And I dismissed it just as I had done the day before.

But on Thursday when he got off the bus, I knew I was in trouble. Big trouble.

Because he had a large Chick-fil-A sticker on his shirt reminding us that tonight was Chick-fil-A night.

The first words out of his mouth when he got off the bus were, "Are we going to Chick-fil-A tonight for dinner. Because tonight is Chick-fil-A night."

When I told him no, he immediately started to cry. When we got home from the bus stop he curled up on the floor in front of the fire place in the fetal position and continued to cry.

I let him cry for a few minutes assuming it was just another tantrum but when he continued to cry I realized he was really upset.

When I consoled him he told me I hurt his feelings by saying we couldn't go to Chick-fil-A and then he wanted to know why we couldn't go.

So I apologized for hurting his feelings (It seems whenever I tell Peter he can't do something I'm "hurting his feelings".) and then I listed all the reasons we couldn't go.

"It's hard to go to Chick-fil-A on a school night honey. It's almost 20 minutes a way. I never know what time Daddy is going to get home from work. I've already bought the food that we are going to have for dinner. (It was leftovers actually but I didn't think that was the right moment to tell him we were having leftovers for dinner.) We just went to Chick-fil-A last weekend. It's a school night so you have to have a bath before bed and it's just hard to do this sort of thing on a school night."

He calmed down and then I told him I didn't realize it was so important to him that we go to Chick-fil-A. Meanwhile, in my head, I am cursing the school for hyping this up so much to the kids.

And then I told him that the next time there was a fundraiser night we would go. Because I was thinking to myself surely it will be a couple more months before there is another fundraiser night at a restaurant. And surely he would forget about it by then.

I'm so sly, I thought, as Peter bounded up from the floor and went happily on with his after school business.

And then, the very next day, the first thing out of Peter's mouth when he got off the bus was, "Mom, we are having another fundraiser night on Tuesday. This time it's at McDonald's! Can we go? You promised we would go!"

Looks like I'm not so sly after all because tonight we'll be eating dinner at McDonald's.

And just in case you are wondering how many times I can type Chick-fil-A in one post, the answer is 13. 14 if you count the fact that I just typed it again while writing this post script.