Grand Opening

For the last year almost, Gillian has been closely watching the demolition of a building at the corner of the street you turn onto to get to our house.  Each day on her way to preschool and then kindergarten, she would observe the progress having been made and tuck the details away, once in a while offering the family a report.  Sometimes, passing the site early in the morning or late at night and seeing the bulldozers parked, she'd be aghast with disapproval: "They're not working again?" (She's always liked demolition and construction--when she was four and saw the roof being removed on a different building, she commented to Sam and me that she had figured out what an "open house" was.)  

After a long period of inactivity, construction began on the cleared lot.  This too she monitored, and in the last couple of months, things have really started to move along--it turns out it's a restaurant, and they're at the hiring stage.  Sometimes in the evenings you can see people in there!  Gillian tells us all about it. Allison Clare asked one day in the car, "Do you think they'll have a grand opening?" When I replied in the affirmative, she instructed Gillian carefully, "Okay, you keep an eye on it and tell us when you think they are having a grand opening so we can go."  

So Gillian keeps watch.  "I think they are almost ready to open," she says authoritatively, "They just need their tables and chairs set up." Something about the seriousness with which she takes this responsibility--that we are all depending on her to let us know so that we don't miss it!--is so very six-years-old.  She came flying up the sidewalk from the bus the other day with the news that her friends had said it would be open next week, and I'm almost sorry--I've so enjoyed her dispatches.