On the spur of the moment we decided to spend our day off at the zoo. It was a perfect day for that, just me and my two girls, a sunny, dry, almost spring-like January afternoon.

On the way across city park we encountered some melting snowdrifts. It didn't take long before snowballs started flying. Amy is a sucker for watching the high arcing snowball. While she holds her gaze on its slow downward path a second direct shot hits its mark.

We know this zoo almost like it was our back yard, since we visited it countless times when the girls were little. Amy is 11, Alyssa is 17, both growing up and getting into trouble as much as they excel at school. I alter between being extremely proud of them and wondering what to do about them.

But it is hard not to enjoy being with these silly, fun spirited girls. They love to play jokes on me as much as I do them.

I hold back and let them walk on, to play a trick, to hide. After a while I peek around the brick wall at the primate house to see where they are.

Plop. Plop. Two snowballs hit me in the head. As I clean the slush out of my ear I see them standing and laughing.

My mother tells me I should not play with the dogs and the girls so much, that the horseplay is noisy and wild.

But I think she is saying that I should not enjoy life and happiness as much as I do. Just look at those girls smile.

"I'd read a newspaper story about an Italian politician who had urged his audience to have more children rather than save their money for luxuries like travel. "The smile of your child," he'd said, "is worth a hundred times your desire to be free, to see Peru, Colorado or Burma."

. . . . . . Sue Ellen Campbell, from "Bringing the Mountain Home"

1/22/97