Last Shabbat on the Plaza

..until next summer. Sigh! It was the perfect warm evening; it didn't even feel too hot although the temperature was something like 93 degrees. And I got there just as the service was ending. Rats...it was all due to a nightmare commute home that was a parking lot for NO GOOD REASON. So I didn't feel so guilty driving part of the way on the shoulder of the road, even though I could have been ticketed.

Anyway, shortly after the service was over, Rachel -- totally unbidden -- ran over to the rabbi, who was surrounded by a group of grownups, and waited patiently until one of the grownups noticed her and stepped aside. Then she looked up at the rabbi and said, "I want to give you a Shabbat Shalom hug," and he bent down and she hugged him. Then she raced back to the picnic blanket where I was watching, debating whether or not to accompany her to the rabbi but then deciding to just watch the interaction from afar (she told me what she said). It was the most adorable thing EVER. "I think you have a little fan!" Drew told Rabbi Cahana when she stopped to say hello just before he left. I predicted that she'll be his favorite Hebrew school student.

She also played with a little boy named Nelson, who is 5 and whose parents are part of our Chavurah. Nelson and Rachel ended up climbing on Drew and horsing around together, and Nelson definitely didn't want to leave when his parents, Robin and Lee, told him it was time to go. "How old is Rachel?" Lee asked, and when I told him she had just turned 3 he answered, "she seems older."

Then we headed to Jamison Park, site of the fountain and the ice cream shop where Linda, Devin, Rachel and I had such a good time earlier this week. Drew was impressed with the fountain's changing patterns of water, and Rachel had her usual great time splashing around, and at one point lying on the bricks as the water receded and getting her hair all wet! (Drew changed her out of her dress into her bathing suit before she went in the fountain). Someone had brought a whole bunch of beach balls for the kids to play with, and Rachel started kicking a bunch of them, impressing us with her kickball skills. (I told Drew she may be ready for soccer, and I'm going to work on him to enroll her in a clinic this fall. She also informed him today that she wants to learn how to ski. Yes, Drew, we have a little jock on our hands). Then Rachel decided to throw her towel over her head and pretend she was a ghost, and made Drew and I do the same thing, and we made her scream in delight when we pretended to scare her.

We headed to the ice cream shop afterward, where Rachel spent most of the time helping herself to Drew's chocolate milkshake and my chocolate/vanilla cookie ice cream -- both delicious -- and taking a few licks of her mandarin orange sorbet (it was quite good, actually). And, as usual, she went off and made friends by going outside the store, plopping down in a chair and making like she was talking to the other people outside who had done the same thing. We stayed until 9:30, and I really wouldn't have minded if we had left even later and gotten Rachel to bed at 11. Tomorrow's a weekend, she can sleep late, and we had the best Shabbat ever.