I trust The Three of You out there will forgive the sentimental ramblings of a semi-old fool. Today, as noted in previous posts, is The Teenager's sixteenth birthday.

February 25, 1989. A day, to paraphrase FDR, that will live in family.

I still can't wrap my mind around the idea she is closer to the front door than she is to the crib. I'm trying to adjust to the notion in two years hence she will be able to cancel out my vote. Which is why I'm putting in overtime instilling some good conservative values while I still have sway.

I was reminded this week of a note I wrote.  An open letter, really, that was published in the February 1994 edition of our ministry newsletter. The Teenager was much younger then and went by the name of The Five Year Old.

Of course, she was never really five. She has always been wiser than chronology ought to permit. She went from three to twenty-two in a matter of months. Is it any wonder, then, I felt so tongue-tied in scribbling this decade-old note to our first born?

My Dear Child,

I did not know I would be so in love with you.

The Teenager turns sixteen on Friday. Sweet Sixteen.

Can it really have been sixteen years since I pressed my nose against the glass in the maternity ward nursery, (a move I noted as utterly cliche even as my schnoz flattened) and gazed with awe upon the only one in the room with the same last name?

Can it really be that long ago my hair-trigger gag reflex tripped on the way to the delivery room and I was unable to adequately coach my wife, She Who is From Venus, through the birthing process?

Of course not.

This is a sham. A Farce. A cruel hoax of time perpetrated on a middle-aged man who is unprepared to send his first-born child out into the world in just a few short years.

Surely we have ten or twelve more years together . . . 

Well, at least we have Friday night.

Two days hence five more teenage girls will descend on Chez GPBlogs for the three-day Sweet Sixteen Slumber Party to end all three-day Sweet Sixteen Slumber Parties.

Total attendance? Six Teenage girls, two underage female siblings and the woman who gave birth to the one I used to call "Little Beauty." There was a time in my life when thoughts of spending Friday and Saturday night on the weak side of a 9-1 ratio  was The Stuff of Dreams. Now I'm just a little more focused on preempted shower times and plotting complex bathroom strategies for the three-day siege.

OK, so I complain too much. Could I ask for smarter daughter? Could I conjure a more graceful young woman who loves her God? Not in my wildest dreams.

So think of me this weekend. Serving pizza. Baking brownies. Popping corn and flipping pancakes. Think of me and feel no pity. I will be serving She Who Has Brought Me So Much Joy and her Merry Band of Teens.

It will be an honor.

And I seriously doubt I'll make it through the weekend without shedding a tear. Even now the eye moisten as I think of the line I've waited so many years to share with her.

"You've turned into the prettiest girl I've ever see-een . . . Happy birthday Sweet Sixteen."

She could have looked in a mirror another few years and never seen it. She might have rummaged through Google and never found the object of her desire. Had she gone a decade or so without discovey, her mother and I would have been jake with that.

But one day recently The Toddler raised her index finger in the air and it hit in the middle of her face. "Eureka!" she likely thought. "Oh sweet mystery of life at last I've found you." We'll never know for sure as The Good Scribes of Los Angeles were otherwise occupied covering the Blake and Jackson trials.

Indeed, she had hit paydirt. Let it be known now far and wide, this child, this innocent, this miniature genetic replica of Your Humble Reporter has now and for all time gained unfettered access to her nose.

Wistful memory retrieves a snippet from the archives when the mere touch of this child's schnozz induced screams of such magnitude that social workers would bang on our door at 3 AM.

"Just a little cleaning, kiddo. Daddy needs to move this little boogie so you can breathe again."

Or Mommy would grab the bulbous blue utility we affectionately dubbed "The Snot Sucker," beginning Hoover-like anti-gravity that will likely be the recurring theme of future and expensive therapy sessions.

No one could touch her small and perfect nostrils without an alarm sounding in her brain like the end-of-workday horn which graced the opening theme of "The Flintstones."

But now Pandora's Box isn't just unwrapped, it's been crowbarred. And The Toddler suddenly parades proudly around the room with a solitary digit of repose in her nose.

She has learned this sometimes makes her family laugh, though we try to swallow the molten giggles before they errupt to the surface. We are seldom successful. And now she knows that placing her finger waaaaaaay up there, then repeating this step in a wanton rat-a-tat motion a jackhammer would envy, gets her all the attention the offspring of a former class clown could ever want.

Yes, we try not to laugh. We attempt to look stern and say things like "Stop that!" or "That's not nice." But it's too late. She knows she's funny. She understands exploring the depths of these twin caverns empower her more than any turn on "American Idol" or executive position with The Donald ever could.

The Terrible Twos are nearly over. Her third birthday is square ahead. But until she learns a bit more about shame or her family finally gets a grip on looking sufficiently unhappy whenever her dancing digit begins to dart and dive, I have the distict feeling The Tumultuos Threes are going to be a very long year.

An addendum to yesterday's post whereby The Ten Year Old returned her spelling test to the teacher, pointing out her 100 percent was undeserved. Turns out on the ride home from school my daughter discovered another word misspelled that had been marked correct.

I'm thinking maybe The Ten Year Old should be correcting these papers instead of the substitute.

Today in class she received a special recognition award for bringing the discrepancy to light. It read, quite simply:

"I got caught telling the truth."

What a world this might be if we all got caught so red-handed.

Two quick stories about The Ten Year Old.

Apparently, while I've been away, the kid has missed her old papa. Last night She, Who is From Venus was putting our daughter to bed. The little one was clutching a piece of paper.

"What do you have there?" asked my wife.

The Ten Year Old handed the paper to her mom. It was the note I wrote to her on the first day of school this year. I had left it near her lunchbox knowing I would be asleep when she left in the morning.

It was her first day as a fifth grader, which marked the last year she would be attending her current elementary school. Next year junior high. But for this day a new beginning.

In the letter I told her how proud I was she was now in the fifth grade. That she had worked hard in school for many years and this was something she could look on with satisfaction.

I admonished her that she was now one of the oldest kids on the playground. That from time to time she might see a younger child who had skinned a knee or had been left out of a game and that it might now fall to her to give some aid or comfort.

That night she thanked me for the letter. That was the last I heard of it. Until last night. When I'd been away from home for nine days and, apparently, that letter was the most tangible way she had, at the moment, of holding on to me.

Today I found out she did something in school that I had never done during my entire tenure as a student. She turned herself in.

She had taken a spelling test recently and the results came back this morning. One hundred percent. All was right with the world. But, as she studied her paper, she noticed one of the words marked as correct was actually misspelled.

I haven't been able to talk with her yet, so I don't know if what came next was an easy or difficult decision. I don't know if she wavered, waffled or just walked. But walk she did up to her teacher and pointed out the error to her. I'm told the teacher, who was a substitute and doesn't know my daughter very well, was terribly impressed.

If I had to guess I would say it was easy for this child to come clean, even though no one would have ever been the wiser. She has a real heart for God and for doing what He would want of her. She would be the first to say how often she fails to walk in His footsteps.

But today I know she has two fathers who are beaming with pride, with love, with deep and abiding respect for the choice she made.

This is my last post from the underground bunker. Tomorrow I'll be home. The time has been well spent. But tomorrow I'll be picking The Ten Year Old up from school myself, then taking her to ballet class. I don't think I knew this until I heard these stories, but I've missed her at least as much as she's missed me.

I'm no fortune teller, but I'm guessing there's an after-school ice cream sundae for two somewhere in this girl's immediate future.

I got a call tonight from The Teenager. She caught up with me by way of encrypted bio-techno-laser phone at the secret location where I am holed up miles below the eath's surface. My mission here is to make leaps and bounds towards completion of the manuscript which will ensure The Family's financial well being far into the next century.

Should it also promote world peace and rid mankind of foot fungus--all the better.

We spoke about how her finals were going this week. We chatted briefly about the state of her back and of her concern for the upcoming Phys Ed final. Then we ran out of things to talk about and she said, "Your turn."

My turn. Hmmmm. How's yer--no, we covered that. Did you know--went there already, too. Desperate for a topic, I hammered my head against the wall hoping something of merit would emerge from one ear or another. Nothing.

So I blurted, "I don't know what I'll be posting on tonight on GPB."

The Teenager was unimpressed. "That's easy," she offered. "Talk about Danny Kaye."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I like Danny Kaye."

This is the understatement of the young century. A year or so ago my daughter discovered an old movie among the video collection left to us by her late grandmother. It was, of course, a Danny Kaye film. She watched the movie and became an instant fan-for-life.

A month back she did her oral report for English class on him. It was clear this was becoming an unhealthy obsession, but I didn't have the heart to stop it.

I must confess, here and now before The Three of You, I never really got Danny Kaye. I mean, I know he was a legend, he was loved by millions, and clearly the hypnotic effect of his manic antics reaches far beyond the grave, into my daughter's heart.

I never got Lucy either. I think it's the whole, broad slapstick thing that put me off them both. There is no denying their iconic staus and no denying their great gifting. Call it a matter of taste and pass the potatoes.

I suppose there are worse pastimes. Stealing hub caps from the cars of nuns immediately jumps to mind.

The truth is I am blessed. In an age that worships the likes of Brittney, Cortney, Madonna and Barbara Boxer, I suppose there are worse places to turn for entertainment.

Just don't expect me to start watching "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Don't ask me to see "Skokie" again--even if it was Kaye's finest dramatic performance. I just don't share the affinity.

And don't ask me to spend an entire post on the life and times of Danny Kaye. I'm sorry, Kiddo. There are too many important topics to cover. And so little time to write.