Anthony

Rachel took this picture of her imaginary friend Anthony, from the Wiggles. I thought it was adorable!

Mutual Admiration Society

Snow!

Love Of My Life

Rachel And Her Friend Shaam At Her Fifth Birthday Party

A Gator, A Ham and Two Beauties

Rachel in Gainesville, FL

Rachel Meets Her Favorite Atlanta Thrasher, Defenseman Garnet Exelby

Now Batting Left.....

I didn't get to see much of Rachel this past weekend, because with my schedule, I work when she is asleep and I sleep when she is awake. It stinks.

So after leaving work this morning, I decided to surprise her. I dashed across the street to her school before class began. She was the only student in her classroom.

I walked in, she turned around, ran toward me and threw her arms around my neck. Totally worth it.

As I conversed with her and her teacher, I wonder whether there was something wrong with my eyes. But there was not. She has a purple sock under one tennis shoe and no sock under the other.

"Rachel, you have a purple sock on one foot and no sock on the other! Where is your other purple sock?"

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"What happened?" I asked. "Did you get distracted watching Super Why and forget to put on your other sock?"

"No! I didn't watch Super Why! It was Clifford.

Whatever it was, I think she confirmed my diagnosis.



Speaking of Rachel and her shoes, I am stunned each night how much playground sand she manages to get in them and on the bottom of her feet. Actually, it has worked out quite well. Instead of going out and buying her a sandbox, I merely need to save up what she accumulates over the course of a month.


Today turned out to be a beautiful day, so I suggested to Rachel she go outside and ride her bicycle. However, we couldn't find her helmet. It probably has adhered to something from all the Dragontales stickers affixed to it.

Rachel had a Plan B in mind. She wanted to go out and hit a baseball. Of course, we couldn't find one of those either, so we improvised with a soft, miniature soccer ball like your dog would fetch. We did find her Hello Kitty bat, the one I can feel bending when I swing it real hard.

It is not easy pitching to someone half your size and she wasn't making contact at all. Then I realized my southpaw was trying to bat righthanded, so I turned her around to bat from the left side. As she faced me, I realized she was trying to spit. It was actually more like drool dribbling from her mouth, but apparently she knew baseball players did it. I assured her that would not be necessary here.

Anyway, batting left, she actually made contact four straight times. Excitedly, she ran around the bases and I made all these exaggerated motions to tag her out.
One of those times, I lifted her up over my shoulders and asked out loud what happened to her. She seemed to enjoy it, as did I.

Before going back inside, I showed her how our cherry tree had bloomed and how our Bradford Pear tree was about to, when a sticker branch got caught on the back of her pants. You would have thought she had been shot. She was still complaining about it two hours later.

That's my daughter... the one-socked, lefthanded baseball playin' drama queen!

Lunacy

There was a total lunar eclipse last night. Thankfully, the skies over Lawrenceville, Georgia allowed us to see it.

I was writing a news story about it for the noon show today when my eyes latched on to this little gem from a CNN script. It is okay to look at the moon with the naked eye.

Really? I was not aware there was even a question. Have we, as a nation, become that dumb?

"Sorry honey....you can't go outside and look at the moon. I haven't made the little device with the pinhole to keep you from going blind."

Or "Where are you going little missy? No one in this family is going outside until they slather on some MPF 100. I'm not taking you to the hospital with moonburn! I doubt my insurance covers that!"

Give me a break!


Okay,I haven't mentioned Rachel yet, so let me remedy that. As we gazed at the moon last night and I explained what was making it disappear, I couldn't stop myself from pulling her leg a little.

While Rachel seems to have little problem cleaning up after herself at school, home remains a challenge for her. So as the earth's shadow began covering more and more of the moon, I explained that someone had made such a mess up in the sky that it had begun to block the moon.

I don't think she bought it.

Like Father Like Son, But Not Daughter

I serve many roles as Rachel's father. I am loving dad. I am disciplinarian. At least she pays attention when my voice deepens and the volume turns up a couple of notches. I am teacher. I am friend. I am confidante. And in a role I inherited from my own father, I am goofball.

Like my dad did, I climbed into Rachel's crib one day. I cannot recall why. Dad was a children's furniture buyer at the time; he had an excuse. He wanted to show how strong my crib was.

My sister converted our home movies to videotape. There is one scene where dad is standing in some park in Chicago and he is standing near some sprinklers. It is shot at such an angle where it appears dad is peeing into a pond, when in fact, it is simply the arc of the sprinklers.

This is also the same man who once ordered a half-dozen tasty pastries during a meal in Europe. There were four of us, so we expressed some incredulity as to why he would order six. "Well, you want one, don't you?" was his reply.

And when I met the woman who would one day become my stepmother, we gathered at a Chinese restaurant. They sat on one side of the table; I sat on the other. After pleasantries were exchanged, we began considering what to eat. "I think I'll have the pupu platter," dad said, leaving no doubt there was added emphasis on pupu. He had a sly smile on his face and eyebrows were arching, as my soon-to-be stepmother read the menu, oblivious to the mugging going on beside her. Mind you, he must have been 59 years old at this time.

But by far, the most embarrassed he ever made me was in a sporting goods store that carried team jerseys, t-shirts, caps etcetera. Dad walked up to a clerk and politely asked, "Excuse me sir...do you carry something as prosaic as a jockstrap?"
As I recall, the clerk sniffed, "No, we only carry major league items." And I swear to you, dad glanced down at his own crotch and replied, "Well mine is!" I literally spread out a rack of clothing with my arms, stepped in and didn't come out until I was no longer beet red.

So, being a goofball is learned behavior for me. I don't remember what it was, but I said something goofy to Rachel the other day while she was on this very computer. She glanced back at me, rolled her eyes, shook her head slowly from side to side and said, "Sometimes I just don't get you, dad!"

Later, I chuckled as I recounted the story to my wife. Rebecca said, "Oh, I say that to her all the time. I'm glad she understands what it means. She's never given me that indication."

Guess she was saving it for use on daddy.

And apparently, there are other things daddies don't understand. During a commercial for the Super Bowl last night, I went in to tell Rachel good night. I stroked her hair behind her ears, as I often do to relax her. She looked up at me and said in a soft voice, "You don't have to do that, daddy; I'm five years old. Five-year-olds can go to sleep by themselves."

Oh, now I got it.

Stroking the hair behind the ears and over the neck is proper behavior while watching the Super Bowl on the living room couch, but no longer acceptable in the child's bed twenty minutes later on Sundays in February.

Maybe that was in Rachel's owners' manual and I just missed it.