I’m waiting for the last two kids to be picked up after my morning class. Emily and Jane are sitting on the steps inside the doors, clutching rolled-up easel paintings, and I stand in the doorway, peering through the drizzly rain for their folks’ arrival.

I’m trying to stay engaged but it’s been a long morning and mostly I have my mind on lunch. Emily is quiet, with a small polite smile one might wear while riding an elevator with strangers. Jane is chattering incessantly.

“I don’t likes monsters. Don’t want no monsters to come to my house.”

I respond automatically, “Well, no monsters are going to come. Anyway, monsters aren’t real, are they?”

Emily shakes her head in agreement, and Jane, oblivious to my comment, continues the monologue, “Don’t likes monsters. Monsters are scary. Monsters can’t come in our house. Don’t want monsters to come in our school…”

Emily catches my eye, and gives a little shrug, a wiser than her years gesture that conveys, “Silly Jane,” or maybe, “Kids! Gotta love ‘em!” In that moment Emily seems more like a miniature adult than a little kid.

Jane is picked up first, and I plop on the steps next to Emily to wait for her ride. Freed from Jane’s monster talk, Emily initiates her own conversation.

“I been on lots of vacations," she says, "So, so many.” (This is no surprise – most of the kids in my school are more well-travelled than me.)

“Really?” I respond, “Which was your favorite? Where did you go?”

Without blinking or hesitating, she answers, “Avocado.”

Hiding my smile, I ask, “What did you do there?” It could be Acapulco, Colorado, anywhere, but it definitely sounds tropical.

“There was a pool and a hot tub, and you could go in the pool, go in the hot tub, the pool, the hot tub – like that.”

This is a conversation I want to keep going, so I ask,

“What’s another favorite place you’ve been?”

“Cop Cade.” Her crisp pronunciation has the tone of a confident world traveler.

“Do they have a pool there?” I ask.

“Mmmm….” she’s trying to remember, “Maybe a beach…”

Yeah, maybe.

“What’s another place you’ve been to?” I can’t help but ask.

“Virginia.”

“What’s in Virginia?”

“Lots of ice-cream!”

She is a four-year-old, after all.

After her mother picks her up, I head to the lunchroom to warm up my soup, wishing I could afford a vacation. The cold wet Chicago winter’s bearing down, and I think I could really use a trip to Avocado.