No one was more shocked than we.

Yesterday, we dropped Monkey off at pre-school as we do every morning.  I walked a few steps ahead of Monkey and Duhdee, who were holding hands, doling out M&Ms to induce Monkey to keep moving forward.  It’s a great system that works very well for us. 

Normally, Monkey eats the M’s as fast as I hand them to him.  We usually go through 4 or 5 M’s.  Recently Monkey has started hoarding his M’s.  He will hold the one I have just given him and reach for the next.  If I hesitate and we tell him to eat the one he’s holding he will put it in his mouth only to take it out again as soon as I hand him the next one.  This makes quite a mess, as you can imagine, so this morning I did not insist that he eat each M.  I would hand him a new one even though the last one was still in his hand.  By the time we reached the door to the classroom he had 3 M’s clutched in his hand.

I always hand him the last M after he steps through the classroom door.  This morning I held my hand out with the last M and he reached out with his fistful of M’s to grab the final one but, this time, he did something shocking.  He dropped all of the M’s into my outstretched palm and ran over to the table to join his friends, ST and teachers at their activity*.

Duhdee and I stood by his cubby staring in shock.  We were stunned.  He never runs to join a group activity as soon as he walks in the door.  He never gives up his M’s, usually he’s trying to grab any extras that I might have in addition to the ones he’s been given already.  He never stands across the room and happily waves good-bye to us as we walk out the door.

It figures that Monday is his final day of school for the year.  But gosh it was a nice way to start the day. 

*Don’t worry, the M’s didn’t go to waste.  I am happy to share that celebratory M’s are the very best tasting M’s ever.