From the "I can die now," department

Rachel asked me to tell her a story tonight at dinner about "someone with a T-shirt like yours, Mommy." And before I could even begin, she said, "You're really good at thinking of stories, Mommy." SUCCESS!!

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Also from the "I can die now," department: I can officially say that I'm One Hell of a Cook because I made the most delicious fried chicken you have ever tasted in your life. Last night I spent two hot hours in the kitchen, frying various chicken parts in LARD (I mean, if you're gonna do it, go for the gusto, right?) for a picnic with our friends Deni and Miriam and their significant others Bob and George. (We met them at Grant Park for a concert given by the Oregon Festival Symphony). They ate up a whole Tupperware's worth of the chicken, and we have enough leftovers for two more dinners. I should add that Drew whipped up a batch of his famous chocolate chip cookies with substantial assistance from Rachel, who is proving to be a real help in the kitchen. Drew has still not given me his recipe for the cookies, which are a doctored-up version of the Original Toll House recipe. But Rachel knows.

"So my daughter gets to know the recipe and I don't?" I asked in disbelief.
"Well, she's a DeSilver," Drew said, shrugging.
"That's HARSH," Deni observed.

Anyway, one of the concert tunes was "Peter and the Wolf," and I had forgotten how I loved that piece of music, especiallly when the conducted announced that the bird is played by the piccolo, Peter is played by the strings, Grandfather is played by the bassoon, etc. Unfortunately Rachel was at the other end of the park playing on the swings and slide with Drew. I finally dragged her back by promising her a cookie IF she ate a good dinner (she ended up sneaking in three cookies while we weren't looking, darn the luck). Today, when we went to the park after preschool, she said, "that's where the concert was!" When I asked her if she liked Peter and the Wolf, she said no -- she was scared by the story -- but she liked the part about Peter.

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Rachel now talks a lot about the people she wants to invite to her house because they're nice and she likes them: Devin. Sadie. Amanda. All the kids in the "pink" group at preschool (she is in the "purple" group).

On the way home tonight she informed me, "We can't use potty words at Devin's house."
"No, we can't," I agreed.
"But we can use potty words at home," she said.
"No, we can't use potty words at home," I answered. "Those are bad words."