Walking to School

We are blessed to live close enough to Emily's school that we walk her to school in the mornings. Since Hartford works from home, he normally walks with her. However, once in a while, he is unavailable so I get the privilege of walking with her. These times are truly priceless. Some mornings, she runs with pure excitement from the anticipation of the day and it is hard to keep up with her. Some mornings, she pokes around and I fear that we will never get there. On these morning, she isn't poking around to poke, but to explore. Some days she has stopped to explore flowers or crawling critters. Some days she has stopped to explore icicles hanging from all the mail boxes on the street. Some days when it's cold outside, she comes to a sudden halt to just watch her breath. Some days are just days that she talks nonstop. Today was one of those days.

She began talking about her old tennis shoes and how she couldn't believe that they were so worn out that I had to throw them away. She stated that she loved the silver tennis shoes that she was wearing so much that she wasn't going to let me give them away, sell them, or throw them away even if they were worn completely out because she is going to keep them forever. She wondered if shoes were made in gold color too. She thinks that having a pair of shoes that were both silver and gold would be neat.

As we were passing a mound of fire ants she completely changed the subject to ants without missing a beat. And to think, I never knew there were so much to say about ants. Then out of the blue, she spotted our shadows. She remarked that in 17 years or months, her shadow will be as tall as mine. As I was relishing every word, she stopped in the middle of a sentence, let my hand go free, looked quickly at me and said, "Stop!" and running away from me she yelled, "there's no time for a hug and a kiss, I got to go." And before I had time to reply, "have a good day," she was out sight.

I quickly finished walking to the curb and secretly saw her waiving hi to the teacher standing at the bus lane as she ran past her and I saw the smile that came across the teacher's face. Who Emily is makes a joyous difference!