The Many Faces of Rachel

It's 3:30 pm. The phone rings at my desk at work. This is pretty much the busiest part of the day. I pick up the phone. My wife is on the end of the line and at wits end.
"Hi, Rachel is stuck 20 feet in the air at the Chick-fil-A on North Druid Hills. Do you think I should call the fire department?"
There is a conversation opener.
She explains some more. I try to wrap my brain around it. I understand my child is stuck 20-feet above some sort of playground equipment outside a restaurant. I can hear Rachel crying. My wife says there is no danger of her falling, but she is worried about Rachel being so high in 75 to 80 degree heat. I'm still trying to figure out how she got up there.
I hang up the phone, fire up the Batmobile and get there as fast as I can. Good thing there was no police officer at the North Druid Hills exit!
As I pull into the parking lot, there is no sign of my child 20-feet above it all. It turns out Rachel got into an apparatus with tubes that look like a human ant farm. There are several levels. For some reason, she kept going and going and going until there was no place else to go but down.
A couple of people wriggled up to get Rachel, but she panicked and shook her leg when they tried to coax her down by latching on to her ankles.
Finally, my wife took matters into her own hands and snaked through the tubes on her own. She got Rachel to come down. How Rebecca got out without use of the Jaws of Life is something I will never know!
By the time I got there, Rachel was on the playground patio demanding sweet tea.
I made her latch on to my gaze and said, "You're not going to do that anymore, are you?"
And she replied, "That's enough!
Darn straight!

That's daredevil Rachel (bandaids for boo-boos sold separately.) There is also sweetheart Rachel.
The other day, while I'm trying to overcome the pain and the itching of the shingles, Rachel gently walks out to me and thrusts a card in my hand.
It is a Jewish New Year card that had been on display on a small table in our living room. Rachel had other concerns, however. She pressed it into my hand and in a soft voice said, "Get well!"
Man, I love my kid!

There is also Rachel, the matter-of-fact.
We've been trying to wean her off so many videos and dvd's, so I was pleased to come home from work one day to a child who wanted daddy to read to her. Actually, she wanted me to read to her and her baby doll.
Rachel was seated in her wooden rocking chair by the end of the couch; baby doll was seated in a smaller wooden chair next to her.
I decided to really dramatize the book, throwing around different voices and inflections for emphasis. I'd show a page to Rachel, then to baby doll, making sure each had ample time to take it all in.
About the fourth page, I'm showing the illustration to baby doll and talking to her when Rachel interrupts.
She informs me that "she can't talk."

And there is disciplinarian Rachel.
We are in the midst of the terrible twos. Yeah, buddy! Rachel is doing a little more standing in the corner than in the past.
During one recent session, I was about to pick her up and put her in the corner when her independent streak kicked in and she said, "No! I do it myself!" She then walked over to the corner and stood there.

The ride just gets better and better.