Quality Time

A Southeast Baltimore girl named Tiffany, 10, got dressed up in a pink and red sweater and took a long trip to see her mother yesterday. Together, they put on bonnets, gloves and aprons while they dipped Easter eggs and talked.But it wasn't a regular pre-Easter get-together. It was a visit behind bars. Tiffany was one of 21 Girl Scouts who came in a red van yesterday morning to the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup, where their mothers were let out of their 5-foot-by-10-foot cells to try and cram days, weeks and months of mothering into three hours.

MY SON DIDN'T become a parent until his last day in fourth grade. That was the day his aunt sent him a Tamagotchi, said to be Japanese for ''lovable egg.'' It's the hottest toy among pre-teens and young adults in their early 20s. It's an import from Asia, where it has been pilloried from Thailand to Taiwan for its obsessive hold on the young.Tamagotchis, and copycat models, are palm-sized, plastic orbs with a liquid-crystal screen that displays a digitized happy face. The owner is supposed to press a button when the ''virtual pet'' beeps that it is ''hungry'' or needs to be ''changed.

Carroll County will once again provide high school wrestling enthusiasts with plenty of quality mat time this year.There's no argument it's one of the state's finest wrestling counties.Each of the five schools' programs appears to be in a different mode heading into the upcoming season.Stability is one of the ultimate goals of a successful program, and Francis Scott Key has been setting the standard the past couple of seasons under 17-year coach Bill Hyson. That was particularly evident last season when the Eagles stayed undefeated in dual-meet competition until losing a 35-26 decision to Hammond in the Class 2A-1A state dual-meet final.

I TAKE INSULT from your Aug. 15 editorial, ''Childhood in the suburbs.'' Yes, there has been a rise in the two-income family, but this does not justify a decline in the two-parent family.My husband and I and the majority of our friends and business associates take pride in our child rearing. We also take pride in our careers.Our children understand that by both of us working we are able to offer more opportunities to them, such as better education and home environments.My children are in a wonderful after-school program that stimulates them scholastically, as well as allowing them to participate in games and organized sports.

They're the scourge of family trips. They always take too long. They make us shiver in the cold and sweat in the sun. They make us fidget and fume. They make us so edgy we snap at the kids, our significant other and, sometimes, even at strangers. We swear this is absolutely the last time.But here we are again, waiting in line. Sometimes, it seems we spend the entire trip getting in one line after another. Even worse, we talk about them when we're not in them, devising strategies to avoid them even if that means getting up at dawn on vacation.

COLLEGE PARK -- Rodney Elliott, who has had to pick his spots of late with Maryland's basketball team, picked a big one yesterday when the Terps needed it most.Elliott scored 15 points in a 13-minute stretch when he spelled starting center Obinna Ekezie. His performance helped the Terps rout Missouri, 91-72, at Cole Field House."I think this is a big breakthrough game for Rodney," Maryland coach Gary Williams said of the 6-foot-8 sophomore from Baltimore's Dunbar High."He hasn't played much, and to come in and do what he did today was outstanding."

It's Day 3 of the snow siege, and the plow still hasn't arrived. There's no way to get out of the neighborhood. There's no way to get to work. There's no way to get the kids to the babysitter's.It's Day 3, and it's snowing hard again. It's Day 3, and everyone is still stuck in the house.It's Day 3, and the world is divided into two types of people: those who are on the verge of losing their minds if they spend another day at home with their kids and those who have surrendered to the siege with almost Zen-like tranquility.

THE MOST outrageous statement of the year? To some people, it was a jury's declaration of ''not guilty'' in a Los Angeles courtroom. To others, it might be Newt Gingrich's assessment that women make poor soldiers because they get ''infections'' in foxholes, or any of several other Newtisms.But for me, the most ludicrous quote of 1995 was in a business profile in this newspaper about a young executive in Baltimore who was legend inside his firm for his 100-hour work weeks. The most important thing in his life, he told the reporter, was his children.

The school year is so new that the children have barely gotten their teachers' names straight, much less told every tale on the playground about their summer adventures, but already visions of vacations to come are dancing in their heads."