Pixie dust in the popcorn

THE LOVELY AND patient older daughter really seems to be enjoying her winter break. She virtually glows as she helps out in the kitchen or bathes her baby brother. Or walks that scoundrel of a dog she owns, up and down the street, up and down. And, perhaps best of all, there’s that quality time with her dear dad.

“What do you want to do now?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” she says, stunned.

“I mean, wanna do something?”

“Together?”

It’s easy, after a baby, to become so absorbed with his every need and hiccup that you forget about the older children, who still value your guidance and cherish every little suggestion. It’s hero worship really. They look at me, a man of wealth and stature, and see all that they aspire to become.

“We could shoot baskets,” I say.

“Will you shave first?” asks the daughter.

With the baby, it is easy to know what to do. We will sit in the living room and listen to the crows flying overhead and practice our crow sounds. We recently spent an hour doing that. By the time we were done, I swear you could barely tell the difference between us and an actual crow.

“Ca!” cried the crow.

“Ca!” said the baby.

“That’s very good,” I said.

“Ca!” the baby said again, like it was nothing.

Or then there was the day I taught him about lying. Not how to do it, which comes so naturally to so many children, but how to resist it. The urge to lie is everywhere, and the rewards can be substantial. Political office. Unbridled fame.

“There’s no such thing as a small lie,” I tell the baby.

“There isn’t?”

“Every lie is a big one,” I say.

There are other things he needs to learn. Like not to steal. Or not to make a pig of himself at weddings. The baby is fortunate to have a sophisticated father who can teach him such things on long, wintry afternoons when the rain soaks through to the rafters.

“How about the auto show?” I ask the older daughter.

“Auto show?”

But finding activities for a 21-year-old is a bit trickier. She is just recovered from that stretch of time where she didn’t want to be seen with me. From ages 13 to 19, she would’ve rather walked among lepers than be seen walking in public with her father. Yikes, wonder if someone saw her? Ewwwwww! She’s with him? When I really wanted to drive her nuts, I’d acknowledge her in front of her friends. Double ewwwwww!

Now she is an adult, legally and spiritually. Her heart rate is slower and steadier, her hair-trigger sense of revulsion less apparent. So I’m thinking that the auto show might be a great place for us to hang out together.

She and I will wander the cavernous halls for hours, leaving our thumbprints on the Mercedes. Breathing heavy on the Volvos. Bumping hips with a BMW.

“For men, cars are the other opposite sex,” I explain to her.

“Dad?” she says after a moment.

“What?”

“You can’t have more than one opposite sex,” she says.

“That’s too bad.”

So off we go to see a movie instead. In L.A., that’s an easy journey. Every block has a 16-theater multiplex. The breeze smells of artificial butter. By all indications, the moving picture business seems to be doing very well indeed.

“Popcorn?” I ask when we arrive at the theater.

“Sure,” my daughter says.

“Drink?”

“Mr. Pibb,” she says.

“Who?”

“It’s like Dr Pepper,” she explains.

Mr. Pibb. Dr Pepper. Who can keep up? We settle into our seats in the Laemmle, two hipsters out on the town. I slump down on my supple spine, the way hipsters do. She eats popcorn one piece at a time. I push fistfuls into my mouth, the way you’d stuff a suitcase.

“I can’t wait to graduate,” she says.

“Jobs are everywhere,” I tell her.

“I think Burbank would be nice,” she says through her straw.

The movie we see is “Finding Neverland,” about the writer of “Peter Pan.” According to this simple little film, “Peter Pan” was inspired by the mirth and playfulness of four neighborhood children. Seems like a stretch to me. I’ve been around lots of kids and have yet to see much magic. Mostly, they just seem to want stuff.

Children “always wake up a day older,” Johnny Depp says at one point in the movie. “Then, before you know it, they’re grown.”

“This is sooooo good,” my daughter whispers toward the end, her pretty eyes brimming with tears.

Pass the popcorn, kid.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.