Bedtime questions

Day 9 of 31 at TWT!

 "Why's it called preschool?" Rainbow Girl's sweet voice kicks on through the monitor as I chug through my evening work routine downstairs.

'Pre' is a word part that means 'before', my teacher-voice immediately says in my head, as if I'm adding it to the word wall for my students.

"Ummm..." I can't quite hear Husband's lower, softer answer.

"When I grow up, I'm gonna go to Irish Dance School 'stead of preschool," Rainbow Girl announces to him. "And Meemaw and Granddaddy will come see me! They'll take off their shoes!"

Take off their shoes? I'm stumped for a moment until I realize she's remembering when we got to visit her big sister's Irish Dance school in December for their winter celebration, where the class showed off the dances they've been learning, including their first time in hard shoes. No street shoes are allowed on the practice floor, so families had to take off our shoes to enter the studio. She remembers everything!

"Why we have to take off our shoes?" her little voice cuts through the monitor again.

"Umm so we don't hurt the..." Husband starts, but she interrupts him.

"It's squishy!"

Their conversation grows soft enough that the monitor goes back to sleep, kicking back on occasionally every few minutes to treat me to pieces of Husband singing their nighttime medley of "Jingle Bells" (added at Christmastime and now a permanent part of the routine), "When I Woke Up Today", "You Are My Sunshine", and "End of the Rainbow".

I smile as I finish tomorrow's lesson plans, wondering if she really will want to be an Irish dancer like Sis. It's sweet to hear her imagining her future, even though at 3, the possibilities she dreams of are mostly limited to what she sees the rest of us do. Who will she really grow up to be, as she keeps turning from baby to kid?