Yesterday was Abbie's first full day of Kindergarten. She hadn't yet met her teacher, so I decided to walk her to the classroom door in case she was feeling nervous at the thought of spending the entire day in the care of some stranger. We got out of the car, and I took both Abbie's and Lucy's hand as we crossed the crosswalk. The moment we went through the school doors, however, Abbie quietly but purposefully pulled her hand out of mine.

My hands are in general considered pretty hot real estate among the girls. My guess is that the scarce supply (having, as so many mothers like to point out, only two hands) for so much demand has led to most of my kids continuing to have a positive outlook towards hand-holding. The only exception to this is Katie, who at almost 11 has every right to walk around unassisted. Even Beth, though, will still grab my hand if it's free and the other girls all routinely argue over who gets to hold my hand and who has to be the caboose.

So I looked down in some surprise at Abbie when she pulled away. She looked calmly back up at me and just said, "I can walk by myself."

We came to her classroom door, and she walked right in without saying goodbye. Her teacher, taking pity on me as I stood in the doorway, pathetically, urged Abbie to say goodbye and she obeyed with a quick wave behind her back, no eye-contact, as she walked confidently over to her desk.

And that was that. Lucy and I left and went to a park, where we both felt weird spending so much one-on-one time together, and Abbie dominated her first day of Kindergarten. As, of course, I should have known she would.