Rachel Vignettes II

How can it not be a good day when you walk out to your car and find your daughter writing "I love my dad so much" on the condensation that formed on a side window?
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Rachel (using the Stack the States app on my iPhone): "Where is Pierre?"
Dad: "Pierre is in South Dakota. I believe it's the capital. Even though it looks like Pee-air, it's pronounceed peer....Wasn't pier one of your spelling words?"
Rachel: "Yes, p-i-e-r..."
Dad: "Good!"
Rachel: "I can spell anything if it has "pie" in it!"
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We're at lunch today and the kids menu has drawings of the planets 1-9 BF (before Pluto) We're giving Rachel hints. We get to planet #7 and Rebecca is saying, "Think of a body part...Uuuuuuuu..." And as I'm starting to think, "I hope my 9-year-old doesn't know the word 'anus'", I hear Rachel exclaim, "Uterus!"
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Rebecca: "Rachel, let your daddy sleep. He has slept two hours and has to be back at work at midnight. Make yourself a sandwich if you get hungry."

Front door closed and locked at 6:30 p.m.

6:32 p.m. Our bedroom. "Daddy, could you make me some popcorn?"

Sigh.
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Today's Babysitting Tip: If you watch my child and happen to make a disparaging remark about one or both parents, you will be reported. And you were
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My self-professed "I'm a tomboy, not a girlie girl" spent ten minutes in Target yesterday showing me her favorite dolls-Barbie Fashionista, Liv and Littlest Pet Shop among them. Methinks she doth protest too much.
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My wife, an art teacher, is staying after school all week, gluing hundreds of nuts to pots. I admit it, I'm kinda afraid to go to sleep.
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Rachel is studying Ray Charles as her famous Georgian. I asked her what she remembered about him. After a few facts about his childhood, we moved on to his music. She says, "He is known for his versions of 'Georgia On My Mind' and 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.'". I gently correct her. "That was 'Hit The Road Jack.'". That sound you hear is Ray Charles rolling over in his grave!
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Sooo...I'm driving Rachel home yesterday and I'm listening to one of her radio stations, because I'm trying to get current with her music. This song by Far East Movement comes on, "Like A G6" Doesn't make much sense to me, so I ask, "What are they saying? Like a Cheesestick?" Uncontrollable laughter in the back seat. I start rewriting the song extemporaneously, weaving in marinara and stuff like that. More unstifled giggling. Good times, good times!
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My favorite part of Thursday's Parent-Teacher Conference was hearing that Rachel came into the classroom exasperated Wednesday and gasped to her 3rd grade teacher, "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was a BEAR!"
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I put in an old Kidz Bop CD into the car's CD player.
"You still like this, right?" I ask Rachel. "Or have you outgrown it?"
"It's passe'" she replies.
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Looks like the sense of humor gene got passed on:
"Hey, dad! Do you know how to wake up Lady Gaga? Poke her face!"
(Laughing) "Where did you hear that?"
"I just made it up!"

Rachel Vignettes

A lot of good Rachel stories have slipped past due to me being busy with one thing or another.  So, I'm going to combine them into a short space.  Let's call them Rachel Vignettes.

I was filling out a form today and didn't want Rachel to see my annual income. So I instructed her to turn around. And she did. Again and again and again--in a continuous circle--until I instructed her to stop.
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My Child's Fathers Day Poem To Me

I'm just like dad
Yes just like dad
We love sunset
The wind blows when we hug
Love him so
Yes I love him
We kid around
not everyone likes us
... Dad your the best
at everything
Dad I love you
Rachel
2012
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So, it's book fair week at the Davis Academy. One of the books that fascinated Rachel is about the human body. So as I'm driving her to school this morning, she asks, "Daddy, what is sperm?" "Stay cool!" my brain says. "It's the part of the daddy that gets together with the mommy's egg to make a baby," I reply. "And it gets in through the mommy's stomach when people cuddle?" she asks. I did...n't know that's what Rebecca told her and I answer, "It's a bit more complicated than that." A few seconds later, I hear her laughing, "This looks likes a sausage with water coming off it." I'm getting bug-eyed like one of the Little Rascals. "What are you looking at?" I ask with trepidation. "A nerve cell," she replies. "Phew!" I say to myself as my brain wipes away the imaginary sweat forming on my forehead.

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Look what Rachel wrote!

Her class wrote metaphor poems based on a color….

Purple are the wiggles I feel inside.

Purple is the grapes on a vine.

Purple is the sunset before the night,

... then I see the stars shining bright.

~Rachel 2012
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Whenever we go out to eat and three straws are always placed on the table, Rachel always makes sure to grab the middle one. She says it reminds her of herself, between mommy and daddy. Love that child!

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  Phone rings at 6:30 p.m. Rachel at her first-ever sleepover, 30 minutes away. She wants to know if I'll drive over to give her a kiss.

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So I go check on Rach tonight. I pour my heart out as I speak softly about how much I love her, how beautiful she is, how I hope she gets into her new school,. Kiss her gently on the face and hand. She doesn't budge. Finally, after letting me express how I feel for two minutes, she rolls toward me and says in a soft voice, "You know I'm not asleep, right?" Then she rolls over and resumes trying to fall asleep.

The Ries Family Goes House Hunting

We've been going through a rite of passage the past few weeks, trying to buy a new house. Okay, actually a used house, but it will be new to us.

It's been an education, to say the least. I almost developed carpal tunnel syndrome from all the forms I signed. I learned all sorts of new terms, flooding my brain until PMI turned into TMI.

As we embarked on our journey, my wife and I knew some of what we wanted. We would like a three to four bedroom house without breaking the bank. We preferred hardwood floors. We wanted a basement. We looked forward to a working kitchen. We call the stove in our current house "Sammy Davis, Jr.", because it has just one working eye. An actual laundry room so we wouldn't have to hang shirts above the washer, only to have wooden hangers conk us on the head whenever we leaned over and knocked the shirts off the hangers. And two sinks in the master bathroom would be heaven on earth.

As we toured our potential new homes, we brought our nine-year-old daughter with us. It was important she be part of the process. After all, our number one reason for wanting to move, besides the fact our current house was starting to look bowlegged from lack of space, was to get little girl into a better school system. We quickly learned she had different priorities than we did.

"Take a look at this sun room. It makes you feel like you're outdoors, but is amply shaded by the...."

"Cool, I found a stick!"

"Great honey, there are probably a lot of sticks around, but mommy and daddy need to check out some other things. Go on."

"As you can see, the kitchen has this nice granite top and cabinets that obviously have been..."

"Doggie door! There's a doggie door!" "Yes, but we have told you...you can't have a dog until we're sure you'll do a better job cleaning up after yourself. We don't want to get you a dog and then wind up taking care of it two weeks later, because you've lost interest. We're sorry, please continue. Can we see the backyard?"

"Look at the variety of plants and trees indigenous to Georgia." "Honey, it has a dogwood," cooed my wife. "You know how much I love dogwoods. And there isn't as much lawn to mow as the other house..."

"PINE CONES!" our daugher exclaimed. "They have pine cones. If I need pine cones for a school project, they're right here in the yard."

Mommy and daddy exhaled deep sighs. "That's great, honey. We need to talk to Miss Angie about some other things."

As it turns out, we didn't get that house.

We selected another one, with most of what we want...a basement, a working kitchen, an actual laundry room and two sinks in the master bathroom. While it does not have a doggie door, it does have a nice-sized human door to send out nine-year-olds in search of sticks and pine cones, so everybody goes to the new home happy. "

Not As Sexy As I Thought

So somebody played "I'm Sexy And I Know It" on a jukebox where we ate today. Absentmindedly, I sang the lyric quietly a few minutes later until Rachel exclaimed, "Dad! Stop! You're going to give me daymares!"