The two older girls were out of the house for a little while, and Beanie was delighted to have me all to herself (where "all to herself" = "sharing mom with only the two toddlers"). I was filling my dishpan with soapy water and left the tap running too long, so we had a Mt. Everest of suds.

Beanie scooped some into her hand; they had a stiffness, a sort of crunch to them, and she said, "It’s like a Wall of Jericho."

I smashed them flat with my palm. "The wall came tumblin’ down!"

She burst out into her bellylaugh, the deep guffaw that has melted us since she was a baby. No one is readier to laugh than Miss Bean.

She caught another handful of bubbles. "Look, Mommy, it’s like a cloud."

I leaned close, pretending to peer at them. "I think I see…a mermaid, riding on a unicorn…" This was a quote from one of her favorite songs on the Snoopy soundtrack. Charlie Brown is forever on the verge of telling what he sees in the clouds, and the rest of the Peanuts gang keeps interrupting with their own grand, spectacular visions: the sack of Carthage, the fall of Rome.

Beanie rewarded my silly joke with another guffaw. There is nothing in the world more satsifying, let me tell you.