Packing. And unpacking. That’s how it felt anyway.

In the past few weeks of our post-Kindergarten, first ever school-free summer (since you need to have started school to be out of school), my daughter Clare, my wife and I spent a week vacationing at the beach and took a few other day trips to places like parks, museums and zoos. For the whole summer, it seemed, we were either getting ready to go somewhere or just getting back.

It may sound like I’m exaggerating, but you parents know that packing and preparing to go out—even for a day—can just about fill another day. You know you do.

When I was single, I’d leave the house for a day with no more than the clothes I was wearing and my wallet. What guy needed anything else? For an overnight trip, I’d drop a change of clothes and a toothbrush into a backpack. Going away for a week didn’t take much more than a bigger backpack. It made getting away a lot easier and more spontaneous. Now, with only one kid, I take more going out for a few hours than I used to take for a weekend away. Going somewhere overnight with my daughter is the equivalent of packing for a week as a single guy. And a week’s vacation with kids—that’s the equivalent of moving. I’m serious. I used to move apartments with less than we take on vacation now. I could fit all of it into the back of a van—and I didn’t need one of those cartop Big Mac-type carriers for extra stuff.

The way I see it, people fall into a few different categories of packing for vacations. There are the early planners—they may or may not make a list, but they always have a solid idea of what they’re going to bring and usually start collecting it early. There are precision packers—militant organizers who (in their opinion) pack exactly the right amount into a suitcase in exactly the right configuration. Precision packers can also fit suitcases, bags, toys and beach chairs into the back of a car with all the mad skills required of an extreme game of Tetris. There are take-everything packers—they might start with a list or might not, but they end up emptying the house and squeezing everything they own into every last nook and cranny of a suitcase. I guess you never know when you’re going to need three different scents of nail polish remover or textures of hair gel in an emergency, and you can’t trust that you’ll be able to buy these things in some remote uncivilized outback in the United States where you’re taking the kids. Finally, there are the last minute packers—these procrastinators might take too much or too little, they might even just throw their things into a shopping bag or something else grabbed at the last minute, but they always wait until just before leaving to get anything together. Obviously, people can fall into a few different categories. I, for example, am an early-planning, take-everything, last minute packer. I decide early what I’ll need, but I wait until the day we’re leaving to get it together, and end up bringing a lot more than we’ll use—but not always everything we need.

To offset my last minute leanings, I try to plan ahead more and more. Even to go out for a day, I track down the backpack the night before and make a mental list of what we might need: sunscreen, camera, snacks, a jacket or umbrella if it might be cool or rainy, maybe even a change of clothes. I still wait until the last minute to stuff it all together though. And I usually forget something—like some napkins or wipes to clean up after a popsicle or donut.

Earlier this week, Clare and I met a friend of mine and her son for a day out at a museum. As I was complaining that I should have brought something to wipe a chocolate milk mustache off of my daughter’s face, my friend offered me one from her bag. I guess this is where I should apologize to more organized dads for furthering the stereotype that mothers are better prepared for anything than fathers are; it probably comes a woman’s experience with packing anything she’d need into a purse or handbag. My friend also offered a suggestion. So they can get out quickly for a day, she said, she keeps a bag packed and always ready to go.

A bag always ready to go? This is my first summer as a stay-at-home Dad, but I probably should have thought of that myself. It could make getting away a lot quicker and spontaneous. And I’d spend less time packing and unpacking. Not very clever of me to not think of that myself, was it?

My daughter Clare is now in her second week of summer vacation—and, since she just finished Kindergarten, it’s her first “official” summer vacation from school. This summer is also the first time since Clare was four months old that she won’t be in daycare or at school during the days. Instead, because I’ve been a stay-at-home Dad for a few months, we’ll be spending every day—all day—of the summer together. I thought that I’d have a hard time coming up with activities for Clare and me to do, but Clare has been a helpful activity planner and has taught me a few things.

I’ll admit that I once thought I’d have more fun with a boy. With a son, I thought, I’d play baseball, watch Star Wars, race Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, and wrestle around on the grass or floor. Of course, as any daughter’s Daddy’ll tell you, one look into a baby girl’s eyes and none of that matters. Still, once the cradling and baby games are over, what does a Dad do with a daughter. The truth is we do just about anything I imagined doing with a son and then some.

Here are just a few of the things that we’ve done in the two weeks since Kindergarten graduation:

• Cooking: Clare got a cookbook as a gift recently and has been waiting to try some recipes. One of them was for punch. Aside from the slapstick fun that we’ve had punching each other in the arm, we also had a great time pouring a few different kinds of juice into a punch bowl with a bottle of lemon-line soda. Clare tossed in some ice cubes and I added some orange slices and we had a party. We’ve also had great fun making Rice Krispie treats. My cooking skills are about level with a Kindergartener, so we always have a great time in the kitchen.
• Painting: Clare likes to help when I’m doing some home improvement project. I’ve let her help paint walls in our bathrooms, but that didn’t turn out so well. I’m a bad enough painter without the help of a five year-old. When I took on painting our front porch though, I figured it wouldn’t matter if we were a little sloppy. We got it done…and were a little sloppy. We got white paint on ourselves and on the daisies in front of the porch, but we also got it on the porch where it was supposed to be. We also took a bookcase for Clare’s room outside and painted it. All of this was with washable paint, of course.
• Dying shirts and daises: Clare tie-dyed shirts at preschool over a year ago and has been asking ever since if we could tie-dye at home. She told me that she knew exactly what we needed and exactly how to do it. Being just a little smarter than her—and a little skeptical of the preschool memory—I checked for myself this week and got us the supplies. We stewed up some colors and made ourselves purple, pink and blue tie-dyed shirts. Clare also saw directions in a magazine for dying daisies. So, as soon as we pick up some food coloring, we’ll be soaking the stems and watching for the petals to turn colors.
• Splashing, biking, running, baseball, golf and pretty much anything else a kid could do in the summer: Having a girl isn’t holding me back from having a good ol’ sweaty time outside like I did when I was a kid. We’ve both got bikes and Clare’s a little more confident on her training wheels with me riding beside her. We’ve also been hitting some wiffle balls and plastic golf balls around the yard. And, when we’re done, we’ve got a sprinkler and a pretty-cool-as-kids’-pools-go pool for cooling off.

So, my worries that we’d have nothing to do this summer have been, so far, unwarranted. Take all of this activity and throw in a little TV time, a little computer time, some games, and (don’t tell Clare) an occasional dash of learning, and we’re booked for the summer. We just have to keep it up for about eight or nine more weeks.

All the cool Mom and Dad bloggers have posted about it. And I’m sure most of us have nodded our heads and agreed.

I’m taking about how we love to hate TV for young kids.

Go ahead. Raise your hand if the Doodlebops drive you loony. If the Wiggles make you squirm. If you’ve ever thought that Higglytown needs an anti-hero—and some common sense. I’m right there with you.

Have you ever wished that Dora would drop the backpack and map and just get lost? Do the Backyardigans and Wonder Pets make you want to stifle small animals? And how many times have you cursed yourself for muttering one of those theme songs? “What’s gonna work? Teamwork! What’s gonna work?….”

Not too long ago, my five year-old daughter figured out how to reach her favorite TV channels. She can work the remote as fast as I ever could. And—since she isn’t growing up having to get up to change the channel or with a cable box the size of a shoebox and an actual line to the TV set—she’s sure to be an expert at it by the time she’s six or seven.

What bothers me though is that at five she’s already changing channels as soon as I leave the room. No, she’s not watching The Young and the Restless or trying to order pay-per-view, but if there’s a break on Noggin or the Disney Toon Channel, she flips over to check out some pre-teen comedy on Disney or Nickelodeon. Already, she’s figured out that if Mom and Dad tell her not to watch something, it must be good.

The problem is easily solved. All I have to do is put the remote out of reach, or—even better—take it with me if I walk out of the room. (That is until she figures out that you can actually change the channel on the TV set. Imagine doing that.) But, she’s still going to wonder what’s on those other channels, isn’t she?

My daughter is almost done with Kindergarten. The four year-old who went to school in September is now a five year-old who has started to read, add, and—sometimes—act like a grown-up. All of us parents can’t help but be proud when we see these changes. We watch our children growing, and, when they revert to floor-pounding tantrums, we tell them to “grow up.”

It’s an odd time, this age between about four and six. We remember the toddlers who we could still easily pick up and who relied on us for so much. But we see them growing, learning, making new friends, going to sports and activities and not always needing us by their sides. They’re beginning lives of their own—lives where they don’t need us every step of the way.

There are still reminders of their toddler years all around us—toys, pictures, maybe some two or three year-old artwork still on the refrigerator that makes us think of the two or three year-old they were not so long ago. It’s cliché, of course, to say that they grow up quickly. But, sometimes, maybe we’re at fault for letting it happen. Before we know it, the Kindergartner sneaking from Nick Jr. to TEENick is starting middle school herself. So, before my daughter surfs over to those channels for good, I’ll gladly suck it up, settle down, and watch another episode of the Wonder Pets saving the day with my five year-old. And maybe, if I’m lucky, it’ll keep her from surfing through her childhood too soon.

My daughter Clare is getting to know some of the neighborhood kids better. There’s “Boy across the street,” who’s also five, and there’s “Girl next door,” who’s six. But unfortunately for Boy, the girls have just discovered the existence of “cooties.”

When Clare’s Mom and I were both working full-time, Clare didn’t spend much awake time at home. She’d leave with me in the morning to go to daycare, and I’d pick her up after work—sometimes we’d even have to go back to the theater. Because Clare’s Mom works further away, her days were—and still are—even longer.

Since I’ve been home, Clare has afternoons after Kindergarten at home to play. And since it’s gotten warm, play means going outside. Clare has a bicycle and a scooter, and so does “Boy across the street.” Boy, who isn’t in Kindergarten yet, has been outside almost every afternoon. One day when both Clare and Boy were riding bikes or scooters on the dead-end street we live on (with me and Boy’s mother keeping watch), they struck up a conversation.

Boy said, “I can go faster than you.”

He could, literally, ride circles around Clare, who still has training wheels on her bike and is finding her balance on the scooter.

“But my bike is pink,” answered Clare.

From that, a friendship was born. Boy watches for Clare to come home from Kindergarten, gets on his bike or scooter, and waits for Clare to do the same so they can ride around looking at each other.

Enter Girl next door. At six, she’s already privy to the social intricacies of the first grade. With a full year of grade school nearly behind her, she is well schooled in who can play with whom and why. She also happened to be outside one afternoon when Boy wasn’t, and, despite the difference that one year can make between five and six year olds, Clare and Girl have also become friends. Now, when Girl gets home from school, she comes looking for Clare so they can ride bikes, play Barbies, and talk about The Little Mermaid like Boy never did.

Earlier this week, when Clare and Girl were in Girl’s front yard playing, Boy came outside and yelled over to them.

“Hi,” he called.

No answer.

“Hi,” he called louder.

Ignorance again.

“HIIIIIIII!” he screamed.

“Stop saying that,” Girl yelled back. “We’re playing girl things.”

“Yeah, we’re playing girl things,” Clare repeated.

Dejected, Boy went back inside.

I had been working in the lawn and witnessed the whole incident. Although I know that this Boy—who plays basketball, trucks, Spider-Man, and runs into walls—is unlikely to want to play Barbies or talk about The Little Mermaid, I still felt bad for him for being excluded. I went to get Clare, brought her over to Boy’s house, and made her apologize for ignoring him and then being rude. Then I let her go back to play with Girl, whose mother I spoke with later.

I also gave Boy a little unsolicited advice. “Don’t let ‘em bother you,” I said. “They’re girls.” But at five, ten, twenty or forty, that’s easier said than done.

I’m going to try to get the three of them to play together some day. I’m sure they’ll have something in common. It’ll be interesting to watch how the dynamic plays out. Very different, I’m sure, than it will in about eight or nine years. Until then, we’ll just keep the scrip for cooties on hand.

My family and I recently returned from six great days at Walt Disney World in Orlando. For my daughter Clare, it was magical. Dressed in a princess dress for dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table and another for a Princess Breakfast in Epcot’s World Showcase, Clare was with her people—dozens (if not hundreds or thousands over the course of a week) of other girls in their princess dresses too.

I know that Disney has its naysayers and critics. And there are those who don’t like the idea of letting young girls act too much like princesses. With trips to the Magic Kingdom and the collection of princess dresses and accessories that Clare has collected, you might think that we’re letting the princess thing go a little far too. But Clare is five, and magic and imagination are a big part of her world. As long as we balance it with enough reality when and where it’s needed, I don’t see a problem.

At Disney World, Clare gets to immerse herself in the wonder of being a princess. And, for a few days, her Mom and I get to step into the magic too.

Last week while we were in Florida, a terrible national tragedy occurred. The mass shootings at Virginia Tech dominated television and radio news, print media, and conversations nationwide. At Disney World though, I never even heard the incident mentioned except when we turned on TV news during the afternoon or evening. It may be another criticism that we could lose ourselves in Disney magic when the rest of the country is mourning over a massacre that, in one way or another, affects us all. As parents, it’s impossible to send children to preschool, Kindergarten, grade school, high school or college without thinking of the frightening loss of lives that has occurred in recent years at all levels of schooling. But, as with all things, we must find a balance. For me, letting young princesses and princes be affected by the tragedy while they’re on their vacations to the Magic Kingdom isn’t part of that balance.

Any political discussion aside, I believe that Franklin Roosevelt was inspired when he consoled the country following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. We do have nothing to fear but fear itself. Certainly, all precautions should be taken and all laws that could potentially reduce the number of murders should be passed. But, we can never let fear prevent us from living, whether living means boarding a bus to school or boarding a plane to Florida. And, we should try to let our tragedies affect as few people as possible, which means that a five year-old princess on vacation didn’t need to hear last week’s news.

Clare’s Mom and I haven’t spoken to Clare about the shootings at Virginia Tech. As far as I know, Clare isn’t even aware of them. If she had asked, we would have struggled to give her answers as best as we could, but would have preferred not talk about it with her yet. Clare’s Mom and I couldn’t escape the news and eventually had to return to the real world and think about the tragedy. But for Clare, there may be a few magical years left in a perfect princess world.

I am curious how other parents have dealt with speaking about the incident at Virginia Tech. At what age do you talk to your children about such things? And how? Unfortunately, I’m sure that the day will come when we do have to explain a terrible tragedy to Clare. In the meantime, God bless all those affected by last week’s incident, God bless the parents and children who are struggling to answer the questions that it has raised, and God bless the magic makers who can take us and our young children away from these harsh realities if only for a short time.

My daughter, Clare, is a drama queen. I should say instead, I suppose, she’s a drama princess. At five years-old, she owns about six princess dresses, nearly as many pairs of dress-up shoes, dress-up jewelry, gloves, capes, hats, crowns, tiaras, and wands. She’s also collected, either as gifts or through our Disney DVD club membership, every Disney and Barbie princess movie made—including sequels—which it seems to me we watch constantly. For Halloween and birthday party themes, nothing but princesses and Barbies have had a close shot for the past three years.

If we’re going out to dinner, her first thought is to change into a princess dress. If I ask her to change her school uniform so she can play outside after school, a princess dress usually goes on before I tell her to change again. If we’re going on vacation, she’s sure to pack at least two of what? Yes, princess dresses. If she has a friend over to play, the dress-up closet is usually the first thing opened. It seems it’s important to be properly dressed for the formal playdate in her world.

But it’s not only the clothes that make the princess. Clare also has formal dramatic training. Until a few months ago, I worked in a theater that Clare visited with me from the time that she was about two years old. At the theater, Clare saw rehearsals and productions of Cinderella, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and Cats. The actors, designers and make-up artists were always quick to give Clare a flower, hair ribbon, or cat face so she could feel pretty special. She made her own debut walking across stage during Broadway Baby when she was only two and a half. And last summer, she was in a fish chorus in Seussical the Musical.

So, given the fact that Clare is dressed for the part and has spent a few years around the stage, it’s no surprise to Clare’s Mom and me that she can be a pretty good actress now and then. I’m not talking about reciting Shakespeare or even belting out Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I’m talking about throwing her arm across her forehead and announcing, “I’m terribly exhausted.” Or dragging a lifeless leg across the floor after stubbing her toe and telling us that she couldn’t dream of climbing stairs on her own to go to bed in her condition. My wife might tell you that she gets this from me—but I’m more crazy than dramatic or emotional. Still, I can’t deny that I’ve probably passed down the theater bug.

How does a parent—particularly this Drama Daddy—deal with a drama princess’s offstage antics? As Snow White would say, “with a smile and a song.” And as the stage “carpenters” might add, something tells me “we’ve only just begun.”