The door creaked open today to the end of my daughter’s innocence. We do our best as parents to barricade that door, knowing that one day we simply won’t have control. But today, the subject of her protection came up. Her safety.

She was watching the movie ‘Waterhorse’, and questioned what the soldiers were doing in the town of the main character. I explained that they were there, like our soldiers are overseas, to protect. “Protect from the bad men?” “Are the bad men dying?” Even harder to answer “Are the good men dying?”

These weren’t questions I was prepared to answer on the way home from picking up my first-grader. She’s talked about the planes flying into the buildings on 9/11. She understands that our American soldiers are protecting us from harm. But, I don’t think it occurred to her until today that actual real life people were involved. And it makes it all the more apparent that today will soon be followed by conversations about the girl that used a bad word, or the boy that made an obscene gesture. And a whole host of questions that will make my heart yearn to go back to the day before.

So, I take out “Waterhorse” and I put on “Diego”. She can ask me about Baby Jaguar all day long. For now, the door is closed again. But, I’m not sure the lock will ever work again.