First You Count to 3 1/2

My wife is setting up her classrooms this week for the 2-year-olds during the week and the elementary and middle school artists on Sundays. I have taken time off to be with Rachel. I hereby confess, I am exhausted.

I have glimpsed the future as a parent of a teenager. I'm starting to shiver. Rachel is 3 1/2, going on 15.

Whatever you do it should be the opposite. You get her a soft-serve ice cream in a dish, she wants to know why not a cone. She doesn't feel like eating anything at lunch and then 45 minutes later, she tells you she is starving. You put on a video she requested and as soon as she hears you log on to the computer, she is by your side.

Ah, the computer. How she is fascinated by the computer! Or as she calls it, the pereeter. "Daddy, are you going to use the pereeter?"

"Can you visit dude with me?" That's another one. She calls the America Online symbol "dude." I have no idea why.

And in an image that's terribly disturbing to a father who often translates words to visual images, the other day, she referred to "Sponge Bob Squirty Pants." Apparently, dinner disagreed with him that night.

She has watched daddy log on and given time, can do it herself. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't check out www.hunksofdisney.com! She is obsessed with Minnie Mouse right now. She wants to be Minnie at Halloween. She's also fond of Mickey Mouse, Pooh and "Donald the Duck."

She's a very sensitive child. One day, I introduced her to one of my uncle's caregivers, Maggie. Rachel's face scrunched up as she burst into tears. "No!!!! That's not Maggie," she trembled. We looked at each other quizzically until I realized the only Maggie to her was a female Little People character who wears red glasses.

And with age 3 come a number of idiosycrancies. I park on the left side of the drivway, so it's a straight path up to the front door. When I let Rachel out, she walks around to the passenger side and then proceeds to the front door.

At school orientation today, they had a wooden puzzle with six kinds of latches and locks. You'd undo each of them and see what's behind the six doors. Rachel figured all of them out within seconds. That's why we have the key to open the front door high above where she can't reach it.

We're working on manners. It's no longer cute to see a 3 1/2 year-old run around a restaurant because she is bored. So imagine our pride one night when she stayed with us at the dinner table. Then imagine our chagrin when she walked across the top of the table to get from one parent to another! Charming, just charming!

And with that, it's time to log off the pareeter. See you later, dude!

Uncle Jimmy, Daddy and Rachel

Summer Shopping Spree

Recently, my wife made a bid to become the first Jewish Saint. She had taught a child in summer school and then met that child's parents. The family had just moved to Atlanta, only to have their nanny quit. So they offered to pay Rebecca if she'd be a fill-in nanny for a week.

As usual, my wife graciously accepted, as long as she could bring Rachel. So, for a week, she did her best to keep up with a 2 1/2 year-old girl, our 3 1/2 year-old daughter and a 4 1/2 year-old boy. By the end of the week, she was on the waiting list for a nicely padded rubber room.

Three children that young carry the equivalent energy level of a trio of two-legged hummingbirds. There is a lot of whooping, hollering and giggling, but not necessarily a lot of sharing.

This family lives in a nice house, one that makes ours seem Lilliputian. There was so much to see, so much to do, so much to trash! Rachel was immediately drawn to the chalkboard. The first day, she placed her hands in chalk and then delightedly placed her handprint on whatever glass or wooden surfaces she could find. Mommy followed closely behind, wiping the handprints from whatever glass or wooden surface she could.

Unfortunately, the oldest child had made it his life's goal to include the word "poop" in every sentence. Wanting to fit in with the hip older crowd, Rachel has now made "poop" a major part of her vernacular as well.

Each night, my weary wife would return home, a vacant look in her eyes like one of the zombies in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. She was too tired to dance, however.

Feeling sympathetic, I offered to take Rachel off her hands for a day. Friday was a sales tax holiday. Rachel and I could bond over shoes and cute outfits. "That would be nice," Rebecca sighed mournfully.

So, the next afternoon, off we went to a nearby mall. After a quick lunch, we headed to the nearby children's play area. Rachel kicked off her shoes and my task became clear; make sure the palest kid in the play area didn't wander off. Rachel decided she'd try to walk across a couple of plastic centipedes on the playground. Holding her arms out for balance, she navigated her way across, letting out a triumphant, "I did it!" at the end.

A bit later, she gave it another trial. She was about halfway through when a little boy jumped on the other end and started walking toward her. Briefly, they looked at one another. Who would blink first? Then, the little boy raked her across the arm.

Rachel looked like one of those World Cup Soccer players who writhe in pain when they are fouled on the pitch. She went from zero to "waah" in 0.6 seconds. My Cinderella had arrived at the bawl. She ran to me.

To her credit, the little boy's mother saw the whole thing and brought him over to apologize. "What do you say?" she said. "I'm sorry!" he stammered. Then he burst into tears. They went to their separate corners, each shedding copious tears.

Okay, that's enough playing. Let's go shopping. We head to the first store, The Children's Place. Rachel sees all sorts of outfits she likes. However, her days of wearing 6-9 months are long gone. Suddenly, she makes a beeline for something that caught her eye.

"No, Rachel," I tell her gently when I catch up to her. "We're not getting orange shoes. If we brought home orange shoes, mommy would have both of our hides."

The shoes were pretty though. They came in various colors and had little flowers on them. It was time for daddy to go to the "go to" color...pink! After trying on various sizes, Rachel expresses her approval. We go to pay. Rachel wants to use the cash register. Rachel wants to sign the credit card slip.

We make a couple of more stops. At one store, I see an adorable short sweater, but by then, Rachel has lost interest. Specifically, she's doing snow angels for no reason on the sales floor. I try to pick her up. I might as well be a Bulgarian weightlifter trying to pull 500 pounds off the floor and thrusting it over my head on ABC's vintage Wide Word of Sports footage. Thankfully, I succeed on my third attempt. We move on.

We stop in a photo booth, to preserve memories of our day out...four pictures for five dollars. In one frame, Rachel thrusts her hand in front of my face so you can't see me. You can see both of us in the other three. Rachel urges me to spend another five dollars for four more pictures.

I don't need to, though. I have wonderful pictures in my head about our mid-summer shopping spree. And they are priceless.