No Boys Allowed Night

Last night while Drew was working the rest of his weekend shift in Seattle, I arranged a post-school playdate with one of Rachel's closest friends, Devin ("best friends!" Devin shrieked when she hugged Rachel as I arrived at school) and Devin's mom, Linda. We went to Hot Lips Pizza (where I was overjoyed to discover they had hard pear cider on tap....how have I missed this???), then played in the Jamison Park fountain, then hit Cool Moon Ice Cream across the street for chocolate sorbet (me) and ice cream (Linda and the girls).

Linda and I taught the girls to say "Girl Power!!" at dinner. So when we were talking about what a great time we were having, we all said, "NO. BOYS. ALLOWED!" followed by "Girl Power!" I'm sure that strangers on the street thought we were strange, but who cares?? It's Portland!

Linda and I had a nice conversation about everything under the sun over dinner. Rachel and Devin played on the patio of Hot Lips and made friends with a beautiful, slightly older girl named Magana -- and Rachel, ever-resourceful, asked for Magana's phone number, which Magana wrote on a slip of paper that Rachel carefully brought over to me. I took Devin and Rachel to the bathroom, we walked to the fountain, and THEN Rachel decided she needed to go to the bathroom again. Luckily a farsighted city commissioner here, Randy Leonard, persuaded the city years ago to build public loos, and there was one at the edge of the fountain. At first Rachel had said she could hold it in, but then she followed that with, "Now would be a really good time for you to take me to the bathroom," and I recognized the panic in her voice. We made it just in time.

While we were in the bathroom she said, "I'm thinking about the sports I'm going to do when I'm older."
"What sports?" I said. "You know that we'll come to all your games, right?"
"And you'll come to ALL my games," she repeated. Then she counted the sports she wanted to play on her fingers: "Soccer. Football. Baseball. Water Polo. Volleyball."

Guess she'll be a very busy girl when she gets bigger!