All Clear

Our laundry facilities are down the hall. Emmuska being the independent person that she is insists that she leads the way every time we leave our door, walk the twenty feet down the hall into the laundry room. (Actually she insists on being the leader everywhere we go - but that's another story.) This afternoon I mentioned we needed to go shuffle laundry and was pulling some things together to do so - in which time she could easily (and usually does) dart out the door, run to the laundry room and back to our apartment before I'm actually to the door to leave. This time she darted out into the hall, came back in and shouted "All Clear!" then darted back out. I managed to follow her out and asked ''all clear' what does that even mean?' to which she respond "There's nobody out here, we are clear to go" in that voice that says "gosh mom you're not too on top of modern terminology sometimes, but that's okay because I'm willing to take the time to explain it too you." Between being completely amused, I couldn't help but wonder where in the world she had picked up the phrase (in proper context no less...) as well as how long she was going to be patient enough to explain everything to me.