"No! No! Stop!" Pam knew her laughter was contagious, and she could tell it was taking everything Jim had to keep tickling her instead of doubling over in laughter himself. "Jim, stop, I can't breathe. Stop! Kenzie! Help!"

"What?" The little voice echoed down the hall.

“Hey, you shouldn’t have started this if you weren’t prepared to defend yourself. I can’t believe you’re calling in re-enforcements.”

“What’s going on?” Kenzie asked as she ran down the hallway with noisy footsteps and then jumped onto the bed next to Pam.

"Help me get Daddy! He won’t stop tickling me." Pam pretended to whisper.

"Did you say ‘please don’t?’ ” Mackenzie asked, her eyes widening.

They had a strict rule that if you really wanted someone to stop, you could say the magic words “please don’t” and then the other person would have to stop no matter what. But on the other hand, you couldn’t say please don’t tickle me, and then keep tickling the other person yourself. These were the rules in the Halpert house, and even at five, Kenzie knew that they were unflinchingly rigid.

“Nope, not yet. I want to get him back first,” Pam said softly.

Okay!" Kenzie fake-whispered back.

"Aaagh! Kenz! No! Whose side are you on, you little traitor?"

"Yeah, Kenzie! Get him!"

"Daddy stop, I can't reach you."

"Come on Kenz, that's my girl! Show him who's boss!"

"Okay, okay, I give up—you got me." Jim put his hands up in a gesture of peace.

"No mercy, Kenz!"

"Pam! What kind of lesson are you teaching our daughter?"

"The same one you were apparently trying to teach me a minute ago."

"Oh, right. Gotcha!" he grabbed Mackenzie and quickly pulled her back down on the bed.

"Daddy!" Kenzie just kept laughing and this time Pam did too, and soon it was too much and all three of them collapsed in a huge fit of giggles.

As their breathing began to return to normal, Pam could hear Owen whimpering softly from the baby monitor on the nightstand. At 11 months his vocabulary consisted of only a few words, but she knew if they didn't do something soon he'd be screaming for Mama.

"I'll get him." Jim said.

"I can help!" Kenzie offered, jumping off the bed and to the floor.

"And I think I'll get dressed," Pam concluded. Jim's eyebrows rose a little as he looked pointedly at his wife. "Don't even say it," she pre-empted. "New rule: there will be no Michael-esque humor in this house until Owen is at least seventeen."

"No," Jim smiled at her. "I just meant, I think you look great already."

Pam glanced down at the boxers and tank top she used for pajamas and then looked back at Jim with a "yeah right" look on her face.

"You think I should wear this to the zoo?" she asked.

"Why not? You'll blend right in with all the other wild animals."

"I hate you."

"Daddy?" From the way her voice seemed to echo in stereo, both from the hall and the baby monitor, it was clear that Mackenzie had already wandered into Owen's room.

"I'm coming Kenz! Don't try to get Owen out till I get there."

"Okay!"

"As for you," he said, turning back to Pam, "I seem to recall being right in the middle of something when you started tickling me."

"Jim--" Pam meant to say more, but in a flash Jim was suddenly pushing her back onto the bed and she found herself in her original position: lying on her back, with Jim half on top of her. The rest of her sentence came out only as indistinct mumblings that soon turned into soft little moans and then something like a groan from deep in her throat. As much as she wanted to keep right on kissing him, after a few seconds she heard Mackenzie's voice on the monitor, "reading" one of her books for Owen, and she forced herself to push Jim away a little.

"Okay, seriously stop. I have to get in the shower and Kenzie and Owen are waiting for you." Jim sighed, but then smiled at her as he helped her to her feet.

"Tease," he muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Sorry," she murmured, leaning in to kiss him lightly once more.

"Fine, go get in the shower, but you should know that your behavior this morning has been completely unacceptable and will be punished appropriately."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep, just for that I'm making scrambled eggs for breakfast."

"You're cooking me breakfast? Well, now I'm really scared. Please Jim, don't punish me like that!" Pam mocked, heading for the bathroom.

"Hey, don't take that tone with me, missy. Besides, you should be scared. I'm gonna let Kenzie help."

"Jim!" she practically shrieked. "You'll have to clean up everything then."

"We'll see."

He smiled mischievously at her and then shut the bedroom door behind him.

-----

"Now what?" Mackenzie asked, turning to look up at her Daddy.

"Now you stir it all up really fast and then you put a little bit of milk in and keep stirring it till it's all the same color."

"Why do you put milk in it?"

"I don't know, actually," Jim said. "That's just how Gammy always did it."

"When's Gammy coming over?"

"Not till next month."

"Why not?"

"Because she and Poppy went on a really long trip with Auntie Larissa."

"Where'd they go?"

"To Australia."

"I never went there. Did I?"

"Nope, but I did."

"You did?"

"Uh-huh." He was still trying to decide whether or not to add cheese to the eggs. Sometimes cheese was a good thing, but sometimes you just needed plain eggs. And you could always add cheese later, right?

"What did you do?"

"Where?"

"In Awstalia."

"Oh, Australia." He let out a little sigh. "I sat on a beach and thought about you and Owen."

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes," he answered seriously.

"A lot?"

"Baby, you have no idea."

"I'm not a baby, Owen is. Hey, Daddy look, it's the same color. You can stop stirring. Now what do we do?"

"Now we put it in the pan and mix it up some more while it cooks."

"Can you do that? I'm tired of cooking skambled eggs."

"Okay," he agreed.

Jim absently surveyed the kitchen as Mackenzie jumped down from the chair she'd been standing on and skipped toward the doorway that led to the family room. He'd already put Owen in his high chair and given him a handful of Cheerios to keep him busy.

Considering that he'd had a five-year-old as his assistant, the mess wasn't actually that bad. Sure, there were a few slimy spots on the cupboard and the floor beneath it where he'd let Kenzie practice cracking the eggs into the bowl, but he had managed to get all the shells out of the mixture, so at least it would still taste all right.

His thoughts drifted back to that week he'd spent on the beach in Melbourne, imagining Pam in her wedding dress. It had been cold at that time of year and he had been fairly miserable the entire time. And then in an instant, he remembered another day only two years after that. She'd picked a different dress, but then again, she'd picked a different husband that time too.

He smiled as Pam walked into the kitchen, her hair still dripping onto her T-shirt in big wet spots. Owen immediately lit up when she walked past, slapping his hands against his high chair tray to get her attention. She paused to kiss Owen good morning before scanning the kitchen table and pulling up a stack of papers on the counter where they kept the mail. Then she looked up at Jim and noticed his smile.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied, but as he continued to look at her, his smile grew.

"Seriously, what?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, but have you seen my phone?" she asked, her eyes still roaming the countertops.

"Try the family room. I think you might have left it on the ottoman."

"Thanks!" she called as she walked back out of the kitchen, leaving him once again with his sentimental thoughts. Well, his thoughts, an eleven-month-old who was enthusiastically throwing his cereal to the floor, and a rapidly-burning pan of scrambled eggs. With another grin, he took the eggs off the burner, wondering what he'd done to deserve such a perfect life.

-----

"So what do you want to see first, Owen?" Pam asked as she finished strapping him into the stroller.

"Owen wants to see a giraffe first," Mackenzie answered promptly.

"Really? I didn't hear him say that."

"He told me in the car. But it was a secret."

"Are you sure it's not you that wanted to see the giraffe?" Jim asked as he scooped up his daughter and set her high up on his shoulders.

"I'm sure. Owen told me."

"Well, okay then," Pam said. “This is Owen's first trip to the zoo, so I guess we should let him do all the picking." She winked at Jim.

Halfway to the giraffe enclosure, Mackenzie leaned down to confess something.

"Owen didn't really say that. He can't talk."

"I know." Jim responded. "But I think you fooled Mommy."

"Really?"

"Yep. She's going to start asking Owen all kinds of questions now."

"That's silly, Daddy. Owen can't talk yet."

"Let's see how long it takes Mommy to figure that out."

-----

"How does it do that?"

"What?"

"Stick its tongue out like that."

"Well, snakes have longer tongues than we do," Pam reasoned, tucking her bangs behind her ear. She could see her reflection in the window of the snake's habitat.

"Like this?" Kenzie asked, poking her tongue out as far as it would go and then wiggling it around.

"Uh-huh."

"Daddy look I'm a snake!" she announced as they arrived back outside to where Jim and Owen were waiting for them.

"Here stay right there, I want to take a picture of snake-girl."

Mackenzie obligingly stood with her tongue sticking out as Jim fiddled with the camera. Pam grabbed Owen from his lap, so Jim could stand up to take the picture, and then she stood behind Mackenzie with her own tongue sticking out. Jim gave her a look.

"Such a dork, Beesly. Okay, 1, 2, 3. Got it!"

"Can we go see the paris now?" Kenzie asked, grabbing Jim's hand in her own and pulling him forward.

"The what?"

"The paris, the big birds that talk."

"Oh, parrots."

"Yeah, paris."

"I don't know, don't you think we should ask Owen what he wants to do?"

"Owen always picks."

"Yeah, I think it should be Kenzie's turn to pick now, Daddy." Pam interjected.

"Hm..." Jim pretended to contemplate this. "Well, I guess you're right."

"Yay! Paris!" Mackenzie squealed.

-----

"Come on Kenz, let's just go see him really fast."

"I don't like tigers." Her pigtails were starting to come out and she leaned up against Pam tiredly.

"But he can't hurt you from inside there, and besides he's nice. He's just like a big kitty cat."

"He's scary."

"Just come see him really quick and then you can come back and sit with Mommy again." They'd stopped so Pam could pull out the snacks, and give Owen a bottle.

Mackenzie just shook her head, but he could tell by the way she kept trying to see the tiger from their bench that she really was interested.

"Do you want me to hold you?" Jim asked.

"No."

“Are you sure, because I think I might get a little scared. Could I at least hold your hand?”

“Daddy! You can’t get scared. You’re too big.”

"Well, I think I’d be okay if you came along to protect me.”

“Well…” Mackenzie sounded intrigued.

"Come here, I'll carry you over and then when we get too close you can tell me and we'll stop, okay?"

"Okay." she replied cautiously, holding her arms up so that Jim could lift her off the bench.

A few moments later they returned triumphant and Kenzie spent the next five minutes telling Pam all about the tiger that was "so big he could eat Daddy in one bite." Luckily, Kenzie had managed to save Jim at the last second.

-----

"They okay?"

"Yeah. They're both out," Pam said quietly, looking back at the two little dreamers in the back seat. Owen’s mouth hung open, his thumb still on his bottom lip. Most of Mackenzie’s curls had escaped from her pigtails and were now half-covering her face. Pam pushed a few of them back and softly ran her hand over Kenzie’s forehead.

"Well, it was a long day," Jim said.

"It's only three-thirty," she reminded him.

"I know," he yawned. "Perfect time for a nap."

"Do you want me to drive?"

"Nah, we're almost home."

"You sure?" she asked as he stretched one arm out behind him.

"I got it. So, did you finish up that painting you were working on?"

"Yeah, pretty much," she responded diffidently.

"What?"

"I don't know, it just gets frustrating sometimes. Like I can see it in my mind and it's gorgeous, but I just can't get it to come out that way."

"Well, I think it's beautiful already."

"Thanks." She smiled at him. "So tell me what's new at work."

"Uh... nothing really. Michael had another meeting about what to talk about when you're with a client. You know, women, sports, politics, women, movies, women..."

"Sounds, uh, fun.” She laughed a little, remembering the time Michael had asked her to make note cards of possible conversation topics that he could use on what he had claimed was a meeting with a female client. She’d known right away that he was actually planning to use them for a date, and Jim had spent a good three hours trying to convince her to write cards full of dirty jokes.

"Well, it was all right, but it would’ve been a lot more fun with you there. I mean, I can tell all the stories you want, but you know Michael—his insanity kind of has to be experienced first-hand."

"Yeah I know. Sorry I’m not there to share it."

"Don't be sorry. I'd much rather see you at home than at work."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Even when I do this?" Pam reached out quickly and poked him in the side.

"Pam! Stop! You know the rules, no tickling the driver!"

"Just trying to keep you from falling asleep,” she said, retreating to her side of the car with a smile.

"You are an evil, evil woman Pam Halpert."

She just smiled. "Well, I learned from the best."