no news is good news

I haven't written much lately because I don't have a lot to write about, but things are just fine.  Rachel's loving school.  Her favorite thing is that they have show and tell on Fridays--she didn't have it last year and she loves figuring out what to take.  Her teacher tells them whatever they bring in has to start with the letter of the week, so the first week was F, and she chose to take in her kissing frogs.  The next week was M and she chose (after much deliberating) to take a movie...Mary Poppins.  This week is B, and she immediately knew she wanted to take one of her Care Bears--her current obsession. 

My favorite thing is that on Fridays we get a paper that tells us what they learned about that week.  We never got anything like that last year, and I feel much more informed this year.  It's hard to get much out of Rachel or to always understand correctly what she's trying to tell me.

My least favorite thing is trying to fit Rebecca's morning nap around taking and picking up Rachel.  She is often ready to go back to bed around 8:15 or 8:30, but I have to keep her up until a little after 9 when we finally get home from taking Rachel.  That often means 30-45 minutes of fussing and crying from a sleepy girl, or she'll catch a brief nap in the car on the way there or back, and then get mad when I put her down for real in bed.  I wish there was a way around it, but oh well.  I think that's the lot of the second child.  I was a stickler for making sure Rachel's naps were at home and in bed, but that can't be the case with Rebecca, because our life is busier now and we're often on the go in the mornings.

I think Rebecca's been going through yet another growth spurt, because she's been eating a TON the last several days and sleeping really badly.  But what's happened in the past during a growth spurt is a few rough days and then a few days of really good sleep, so I'm hoping those days of good sleep are not far away!

Rachel's current favorite things are Care Bears (she's seriously obsessed!!), listening to stories on CD (I've reserved a million at the library in the last few weeks!), and doing puzzles with Mommy.  She's always loved puzzles, and is good at them, but she goes through phases with them.  Sometimes she doesn't want to do them at all, but right now she wants to do them all the time, but she wants me to help her--even though she can do them herself.  She's now doing around 65 piece puzzles.  I don't think it'll be long before she's ready for the 100 pieces.  She has a hard time doing the edges, though--she'd much rather do the center part, so I often put the outside edges together and she does the inside.  I always thought the edges were the easy part!

And the books on CDs are the greatest invention ever.  She plays in her room for an hour at a time sometimes, just listening to them over and over while she plays.  I think she likes them because they keep her company.  She doesn't like being by herself for long, otherwise.

Rebecca's current "favorite" things, if you can call them that, are her hands.  She chews and chews and chews on them.  I can see some little teeth below the surface on the bottom of her gums, so we'll see how long it'll take for them to poke through.  She's been drooling like crazy for about three weeks or so.  She's now able to grab her toys that hang down.  She still hasn't been able to grab her feet, though she likes to stare at them when she's sitting up on my lap.

Last week Rebecca went to the physical therapist for an evaluation about her feet (and the fact that they turn in so much).  She said we'll keep an eye on them (I'm supposed to call her next month to tell her how they're looking, and then go in again at 6 months and 9 months), but we don't need to do any therapy right now.  I also found out that I'm quite delinquent in giving her "tummy time."  The therapist told me she's supposed to be on her tummy for around 4 hours a day by now.  WHAT?????  She's hardly even awake 4 hours a day!  Needless to say, she's not on her tummy even close to that much (unless you count the hours she spends sleeping on her tummy....but shhhhhh... I didn't tell you that, because she's not supposed to be sleeping on her tummy!), but I have tried to be better about making sure she gets some more playtime on her tummy as well.

And that's what's going on in my neck of the woods.