Like Storm Troopers

Monkey1 is almost a first grader. I witnessed a shift today.

We got to school 15 minutes early, on purpose in order to search the playground for a book she left there yesterday. She found it right where she left it, in a bush, and then we planted ourselves in the garden space with benches near the church doors, halfway up the sidewalk to the gym entrance to the school. Actually, I parked myself on a bench and Monkey1 and Monkey2 jumped around on the flagstone path, Monkey1 practicing her counting by tens, fives, and twos. A classmate joined her, under the full-suited eye of a father about to head to work. When the bell rang, opening the school doors, the other kindergartner bid a cheerful good-bye shout to his father. Monkey1 told me that I didn't have to walk with her, that she was going with...

"We're going to sneak," he told her, "like storm troopers" (not the storm troopers I grew up with, who were the bad guys, but the earlier ones, who have their own cartoon shows these days) "through the church -- it's faster!"

In amusement I followed well behind as they tip-toed through the gathering space, out to the covered walkway, to the school front doors by the office. Monkey1's classmate had to ring for the door to be unlocked, he was so short that the secretary did not see him go by the window, and then they shot in through the doors, after a brief struggle to yank them open.

No kiss, no good-bye, as I watched her with pride. My kindergartner can almost walk into school on her own.