letter to santa

Dear Santa,

For Christmas this year I'd like a "Kwismiss Twee."

But since Mommy told me we'd probably get one before Christmas, could you bring a "pah-ty" hat for me to wear instead? And some for Mommy and Daddy, too, because I want us all to wear party hats.

Love,

Rachel

I asked Rachel the other day what she hoped Santa would bring her for Christmas. The above responses were her answers!

still sick

My house is full of germs. My cold is much better, but I can't say as much for the rest of my family. My husband is getting worse, instead of better, and Rachel's has stayed about the same (except she's added a cough to her list of symptoms). Thankfully, she's sleeping okay at night, thanks to Benadryl and Vicks. Naptime has been a different story.

Some time ago she decided that her stall tactic for keeping us in her room when it's bedtime would be to say, "I need a kleenex, please." I don't know what started it or why she chose that, as opposed to, say, "I need some water, please," like most kids seem to want. She wants a kleenex. All. the. time. So we started leaving one in her bed with her--that way she can't ask us for one.

But then this cold started, and she'd wipe her nose or eyes with the kleenex, declare it "yucky," and then want a new kleenex! This tactic didn't work, though. We wouldn't go back in to get it for her. So then she started crying. Crying with a horribly stuffed up nose just makes it worse, and Saturday at naptime she had worked herself up into quite a mess. We went in a couple of times, calmed her down, she got a new kleenex, and we arranged her covers again, but before long she was at it again. After an hour we gave up and got her up. We told her she could stay in bed and go nigh night or go in her playpen by herself. Either way, we weren't going to be with her. She chose the playpen. And surprisingly, she played really well in there for another 45 minutes before we got her up and declared "naptime" over.

Sunday's nap started out heading in the same direction. I was nervous. I really, really didn't want the no-nap thing to become a trend. She's too little to give that up (I'm too selfish to give it up!!!! It's my two hours of peace!). Thankfully, though it got off to a rough start, she did fall asleep. I'm really hoping today goes a bit better and we can forgo the bit at the beginning. She's always gone down SO well for naps and nighttime. I don't want all of that to change now, after nearly three years. Maybe it's just the cold. Maybe it will all come back to normal when she's well (like, in April, since she's usually sick for most of the winter....). I'm already tired of winter and it isn't even here yet!!!!

the barefoot artist

She asks all the time now, "Paint, Mommy? I paint now?" We only get them out once in awhile because they're so messy, but I'm sure that now that it's cold, they'll be coming out more and more.

After painting I introduced her to the chalkboard on the back of the easel. She had no idea chalk could be used anywhere other than outside on the driveway...and she was thrilled. Here's how she started,

and how she ended...covering up as much as the board as she could reach.

a birthday wish

meteorologist

A recent conversation with Rachel:



Rachel (pointing to the trees): What happened?

Mommy: What happened to what?

R: What happened to weebs?

M: You tell Mommy. What happens to the leaves in the fall?

R: Weebs fall on da gwound! It's fall time!

M: That's right!

R: In winter time it snows!

M: Yes, it does! What about summer?

R: (silence)

M: In summer it's HOT!

R: Go swimmin'!

M: Yes, you go swimming in the summer when it's hot.

R: Sometimes go swimmin' Gwammaw's house.

M: Yes, you went swimming at Grandma's house.

R: Sometimes go swimmin' Rachel's house.

M: Yes, sometimes.

R: What happened? What happened my pool?

M: Mommy and Daddy put it away because it's not hot anymore.

R: Not hot. Cold! Weebs fall on da gwound. It's fall time!



(and over and over and over....ad nauseam)



We've had this same conversation almost every day for the last week as she's been playing outside in the warm, gorgeous weather we've been having. Sadly, I think it's over (the warm weather....not the conversation).


She's quite the weather enthusiast.


And on a completely unrelated note.....Happy Birthday, Jack!

sick

It's that time of year. We all three have a cold. Unfortunately, Rachel's is the worst. Why, oh why can't babies be born with not only a sucking reflex, but a nose-blowing reflex???? It's so hard, knowing that she would feel so much better if she would only be able to blow her nose and get that stuff out of there. And using a syringe? Not an option. Holding her down for anything is nearly impossible. I'll save it for the really important stuff like checking to see if she has an ear infection at the doctor's office (which we hopefully won't have to do this winter!!).

Mood-wise, she's doing okay. But her energy is definitely not quite there--she's spending much more time sitting on my lap than usual instead of running around like crazy. She's having trouble sleeping, though, which means that of course I'm having trouble sleeping, too. Oh well. This, too, shall pass.

I'm happy to report, though, that illness has not hindered her ability to tell me that she 'wubs' me. I'm hearing it a lot lately, and it's music to my ears.

affection

I mentioned that my mom was here for a couple of days. On the first night she was here, Rachel was just beside herself with excitement. She was running around and around in the play room, showing off for Grandma. All of a sudden, she ran over, threw her arms around my mom, and said, "Gwammaw, I wub you!" We were all so taken aback and excited, because she had never told us I love you before on her own....just repeating it sometimes when I say it to her. My mom, of course, was thrilled to be the recipient of such sweet affection.

She then started running back and forth between the three of us...."Mommy, I wub you," "Daddy, I wub you," etc, and giving us all big hugs, over and over.

Lately she's been calling things her "favwit." The other day in the car with my mom she wanted sunglasses. Hers were in the other car, so Grandma said she could wear hers. "Thank you, Gwammaw, deese are my favwit!" Yesterday she brought her jack-in-the-box into the kitchen where I was cooking dinner. "Mommy, dis is my favwit toy evah!" she told me.

I wub my sweet girl. She's my favwit.

today's top story

The previous post for today posted automatically this morning, since I wrote it a couple of days ago. But I didn't want to leave out the biggest news of the day, which is, of course, the election of a new president, so I'm writing an extra post today.

I'm not much into politics (much to the dismay of my former government teacher, my DAD!) but I did pay more attention to this election than I ever have to any other election in my life. I've voted in all of the major presidential elections since I turned 18, but never was I more well informed than I was this time. (Mind you, I hadn't set the bar very high in the past, so I wouldn't say I was completely well informed, but I did watch almost all of the debates and followed the campaigns loosely--more than I can say for previous elections).

I don't affiliate myself with any political party, and until I walked up to the voting machine yesterday morning, I still wasn't completely sure who would get my vote. I was literally shaking when I made my selection, because I really didn't know if it was the right choice--I wasn't sure if either of the candidates was the right person for the job, to tell you the truth. Before I hit the "confirm your vote" button, I continued to go back and forth in my mind if that was truly who I wanted to see in the White House. I thought about it and questioned my choice all day yesterday.

I surprised myself last night by being more interested than I normally would be in the projections. And again this morning by tearing up when I heard replays of both Obama's and McCain's speeches last night (no, I didn't stay up to watch past 10:00...I told you I'm not that into politics--I cared about this election, but I care about sleep more at this point, since insomnia is frequently a problem and I need to get my sleep when I can get it!).

I don't have anything particularly profound to say about all of this, except that I'm thankful that I live in a country where I'm allowed and encouraged to have an opinion about all of this. And I'm thankful that my daughter will grow up in such a place (and I hope that she is more interested in all of it as she grows up than her mother was!).

trees

I can't take credit for these pictures...my mom took them when she was here.


I've lived here for five years and I don't think I've ever realized what a pretty tree we have in our back yard in the fall. My husband said it's been like this every year (I guess I'm just very unobservant!), but the leaves don't usually stay on the tree long enough after they change to notice. For some reason this year they're staying on the tree longer and we get to enjoy its beauty. Now if I can only figure out how to photoshop that big red sandbox and lawn chairs out of the picture....



A few weeks ago Rachel figured out how to "climb" one of our trees. Climbing it consists of stepping up about six inches into a small indentation between the two parts of the tree and holding on. My mom caught a picture of this.

gag me with a....PB&J?

This is rather gross....don't read if you have a weak stomach. Sorry....but this is what we're dealing with at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago we ate dinner at The Olive Garden. At the end of the meal they bring those Andes mints when they bring your check. I broke off a small piece of one and gave it to Rachel. She started chewing it up with a very strange look on her face (we've since come to realize that she doesn't like mint). Then she started gagging and proceeded to get sick all over the table, her high chair, and the floor. Thankfully I had an extra pair of pants in the diaper bag so I went to change her while my husband cleaned up the mess (What a guy!). She wasn't sick...just gagged, which then triggered her to throw up. She didn't fuss and was as happy as can be after it happened. Very strange.

So yesterday she was eating lunch--PB&J. She had only eaten a few bites. My mom, who is here visiting for a couple of days, and I were trying to encourage her to eat a couple more bites. She kept saying she was all done (this is a frequent struggle in our house). We bribed her with a piece of halloween candy if she ate the rest of the half she had in her hand. She willing ate the rest...all at once. Then she started gagging. And up it all came, all over her bib and tray of her booster seat. My mom got her out (she was crying by this point) and she then got sick again all over herself and my poor mom.

My mom thinks it's all related to her feeding problems she had early on (when she had to drink her bottles laying flat on the floor instead of in our arms because she started choking and gagging). Maybe she has a super sensitive gag reflex. I don't know. It doesn't seem to be anything particularly serious, but it is pretty gross!

Anyone know anything about this problem??

say cheese!

This dress is from Great Grandpa, so before we went to church last week I took a picture of it so he could see her in it.

After we got home she decided she wanted to wear her boots with it instead. I wanted to take a picture because I thought it was funny. She decided she wanted her glove on, and that Polar Bear and Jack-o-Lantern should be in the picture too.

ballet pjs

She's crazy about ballet, so these new ballet PJs from Great Grandpa are perfect. She LOVES them and is so excited every time they're clean and she gets to wear them again! "My banawina jammas!" she always exclaims.

trick or treat

For a week now she's been so excited about going trick or treating. She didn't really know what it was, but she knew she was supposed to say "twick or tweet" and she'd get candy from somebody.

After dinner last night she talked and talked about it, and wanted to put on her costume. Finally it was time, and she was thrilled. She looked at herself in the mirror, stood sideways so she could see her tail, and hopped up and down like a bunny.

A lady who walks her dog in the neighborhood when we're outside all the time knocked on our door just after Rachel got her costume on and said she wasn't passing out candy, but she wanted to give candy to the little ones she knows in the neighborhood (wasn't that so nice?). Rachel was so excited to put the candy into her pumpkin bucket.

Then we went outside to take pictures. The most exciting part was hippety hopping down the sidewalk. She was good and tired before trick or treating even started! The ears flopped every time she hopped--it was extremely cute.

We practiced trick or treating at our house, and Daddy answered the door and put candy in her bucket. She loved it.

When it came time to go, we started at Ethan's house, our next door neighbor, who is about 6 months older than Rachel. She was so excited to see "Spiderman," which was his costume he had been talking about several weeks ago when they were playing. We went up to their porch and Ethan/Spiderman was out, but his mom went back in to get the candy. When she came back out, so did their mammoth chocolate lab, Griffin, who came right after Rachel with a sloppy kiss. Just as she was just getting psyched up to say trick or treat! She came running to me, terrified, and then was all flustered, once things finally calmed down. We had to prompt her over and over again to say it. She finally did, but it was very soft and shy, not like she'd been saying it at home at all. From then on, it was more of the same. She followed Ethan around the cul de sac, and he'd holler "Trick or Treat" as he was walking up the driveways, but it was like pulling teeth to get her to say it, and often she'd cover her eyes when I'd say, "What do you say?" She did manage to say thank you to most of the people, though, so at least she remembered her manners!!

We went around our cul de sac, and to a house across the street to a house where we know the family, and then she was done. Ethan kept going all over the neighborhood, but she had had enough. The part she loved the most was sitting outside with us (it was warm and beautiful! Great trick or treat weather!) watching everyone and seeing all of the costumes. Her favorites were a Dora costume and a Pablo (from The Backyardigans) costume, who she asked about constantly ("Where'd Pabwo go??? Where's Pabwo?") She asked to eat her candy non-stop, and was allowed half a kit kat and a little mini twix, and then sucked on a tootsie pop (which didn't even fit in her little mouth!) for the rest of the night.

From time to time she'd hand me her sucker and go hop again on her hippity hop (she calls it her bouncy ball, but we always called them hippity hops growing up). "I hop in dark," she kept saying. It was quite a treat to be outside in the dark, since she's usually in bed by dark (which will now change with the time change this weekend....more on that in another post). People started calling her the Energizer Bunny, hopping all around on the sidewalk in front of our house.

That's our girl, all right....the Energizer Bunny (who fell into bed exhausted when the night was done--she didn't make a sound!).

jack-o-lantern

A week or two ago I bought a pumpkin for the front step. She's been in love with it and pats it or gives it a hug when we go in or out.

Last weekend she got a Halloween book from my mom and she learned that a pumpkin with a face is called a jack-o-lantern. She's been excited about that all week.

So last night we decided to make our pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. Neither my husband nor I had carved a pumpkin in years and years, so not only was it a first for Rachel, but it was also a pretty new experience for us, since it had been so long.

We drew the face on first before we cut (but we really didn't end up following our lines very well!). Rachel wanted to draw on it too, so we gave her a crayon. You can see lots of scribbles on the side of the pumpkin if you look at it in the light.

She enjoyed scooping out the insides at first, but gave up after a minute or so, and I had to finish the job.

While Daddy cut the face, she enjoyed playing with the triangle pieces (excuse my husband's psychotic-like face, please....)

Afterwards I put the candle in and all she wanted to do was blow it out (She tried, but all she did was spit all over the inside of the pumpkin!).

She was so excited to see him this morning when she got up. She said, "It's ready, Mommy!" I said, "Ready for what?" And she answered, "It's ready to eat!" I told her we don't eat jack-o-lanterns. She said, "Yeah, it's just puh-ten (pretend)." That's her new favorite word.

She's also learned about costumes, and knows what she's going to be for halloween and that she's going to go "twick or tweet!" She doesn't know what that means yet, but I'm sure she'll love it once she does. And yesterday she had overalls on, and out of the blue she points to them and says, "I hab fah-muh (farmer) costume on, Mommy!"

cheeseburgers and babies

Sadly, Allecia and Kaden left this morning. But it was a great visit and I'm already looking forward to a few weeks from now when Rachel and I go visit them and the brand new little baby they'll have by then. Rachel just found out this morning that Miss Allecia has a baby in her tummy (I told her so that next time we see them and she has a baby, she will at least have been forewarned!). Later today after they left, she lifted up her shirt and told me there's a baby in her tummy, too. When I told her that only grown up ladies have babies in their tummies sometimes, she said, "I big girl. I go potty." I guess she thought that qualified her to have a baby in her tummy, too.

We had a great night last night. I had been planning for several weeks to surprise Allecia with a baby shower while she was here. It took lots of planning and a few little white lies while she was here, but we pulled it off and she was completely shocked. I was thrilled to have made her so happy and given her such a great time with friends she wasn't expecting to see while she was here. (Unfortunately in this picture I'm sitting closest to the camera because everyone's feet were in the way, and therefore I look 10 times bigger than everyone else in the picture! Ugh! It's the only picture we took!!)

After dinner last night (before the shower) Allecia and I were in the living room playing with Rachel and Kaden. Rachel and I had built a wall with her big building blocks, and there was a window in the wall which Rachel was pretending was a fast food window. She was buying pretend chicken nuggets and french fries, and we were taking turns being the one ordering. After several rounds of chicken and french fries I decided to ask her for a cheeseburger instead. When I did, she waited a minute, looked at me with a blank look on her face, said, "Okay," and proceeded to stick her finger up her nose and hold out a pretend 'booger' to me as my cheeseburger!! After I stopped laughing so hard I had tears coming out my eyes, I realized that she's never had a cheeseburger and really doesn't know what one is. She really thought I said booger, and she does know what those are! Oh.....my funny girl.

homecoming

Not the type of homecoming that usually comes at this time of year, where you go see people you graduated with and haven't seen in a million years....




But the sweet reunion with friends type, where they come "home" to visit after moving away.


Allecia and Kaden are here!!!


Rachel was so excited when they drove up that she threw herself down on the floor and squealed with delight (it's normal...for Rachel, anyway....That's what she does when she's overcome with excitement--she does it often when Grandma comes to visit, too!).


The visit started with the two of them playing duets together on the piano.



Last night they got to watch a show....a highlight for us all (them because its probably their favorite time of the day and us because they were quiet!!).
(I told Allecia that 30 years from now when they're married to each other and laying on the couch in this same position we can take another picture and compare the two....)

And this morning they serenaded us with more duets (this time in their PJs).

Last night Allecia and I went shopping like old times after we put the kids to bed and hung out at Starbucks (staining my new tooth with a Pumpkin Spice Latte....) talking and enjoying the time together.



Today we went to the local kids science museum and the kids enjoyed it even more than last time they were there--as they get older I'm sure they'll get more and more out of it.



It's been a fun visit so far and I'm looking forward to more of the same for the next couple of days.

a-hiking we will go...

Every year my husband likes to try and go find fall foilage to admire and photograph, and somehow fit a hike into the day as well. This past weekend we went up north, not far from where he used to live, and enjoyed the cool (frigid, actually!) fall morning and hiked. Rachel rode in the backpack for about half of the trip and actually hiked herself the rest of the way.

She absolutely loved it (much to her Daddy's delight!). She started climbing these rocks....



...and then showed us how proud she was of herself.




She didn't want to pose for this picture...she'd much rather be climbing!




Then we went to this waterfall.




You can see what she was really interested in here....





Here's a little better one.





We left the waterfall and she enjoyed walking on the wooden path by herself.




Then she started marching ("Mahch, two, fwee, fow....Mahch, two, fwee, fow...." is what she was saying!)






This is a view of the waterfall from the other side.






And here she is after lunch....a full tummy and just as happy as can be.

insomniac

*Updated at the end*

Notice the time stamp on this post? It's no mistake. It's 4 AM. I've been awake a lot lately at 4 AM. This problem first started when I was pregnant. Apparently my bladder never recovered from pregnancy, and I frequently wake up around 3:30 or so, much like I did then, and have to make a trip to the bathroom (yeah, sorry...probably more than you needed to know). And then I can't go back to sleep. For the rest of the night. Unless I've taken something at bedtime to help (my meds of choice? Tylenol PM, Advil PM, Benadryl....it doesn't matter much....they all help). The problem is that I don't want to take something every night, and I never know ahead of time which nights will be the rough ones. I went through a phase where I did take something every night. The sleep was nice. Worrying about my liver, or the lining of my stomach, and those sorts of effects, was not, so I stopped. So here I sit at 4:10. I can hear my husband snoring, even though I'm downstairs and he's upstairs in the room above me, happily sleeping (his snoring is one of the reasons why I can't go back to sleep). When I come downstairs I escape his snoring (almost....like I said, I can still hear it, faintly), but then I hear my daughter on the monitor. Every little whimper. And there seem to be plenty of them. At least when I'm in my own bed I can only hear her when she really needs me and is crying. I can't stand sleeping with the monitor next to me.


So anyway, this has become a regular part of my world lately. I hate it.


But I'm sure you didn't stop by here to read about my sleeping problems. So I'll give you what you came for:





Yesterday I was cleaning up Rachel's bookshelf a little bit, which meant there was a brief period where there was an empty shelf. She seized the opportunity and said, "I sit in there, Mommy," and crawled right on in. Then she said, "I go nigh night," and this was the result. My husband came home for lunch right about at that time, took a look at what she was doing, and shook his head. That's our girl.

The last few days she's been full of fun. She's just started laughing and laughing out of the blue several times, turned to me, and said, "I just so HAPPY, Mommy!"

Yesterday was the end of an era. Twenty years ago, on a Friday night in the fall of 1988, I was a freshman in high school, marching in my first postgame victory "Snake Dance" on the football field of CHS. Because it was my first time, I didn't know that when you spun around, playing follow the leader, you were supposed to put your instrument down, not continue playing until the spin was finished. I found that lesson out the hard way, as the extended bell of my trumpet hit the bell of Julie Vance's trumpet as I spun around. When they hit, my trumpet was forced back into my mouth, and something happened to my tooth. I didn't know what--I stopped playing and just marched, using my tongue to try and figure out what was going on in my mouth. By the time we arrived back to the band room and were dismissed, I was crying because I thought I had lost both of my front teeth. In actuality, I lost a small piece of one of my front teeth. I was so embarrassed that I kept my hand over my mouth and went straight home in tears with my parents, instead of out for pizza with my friends. My mom made an emergency call to our dentist and he called back, telling her to bring me in the next morning (Saturday morning--what a nice dentist!!) and he would fix it. And fix it, he did. You couldn't even tell there had been a problem. (The ironic thing? That very same day at school, during band class, my new friend, Carly, was commenting on how great my teeth were, telling me how straight they were, and asking if I had ever had braces (I didn't....I had some retainers for a couple of years, but never had to have braces).)

So anyway, that was 20 years ago. After 20 years of drinking the occasional Pepsi, coffee, and other staining foods, that piece of composite making up for the missing part of my tooth had darkened and didn't match the color of the rest of my tooth anymore. It's been very obvious for the last several months that something was wrong with my tooth. I have become increasingly embarassed about it, and self conscious about smiling. It was time to get it fixed.

So over the course of the last six weeks or so, I've been whitening my teeth (with Crest Whitestrips, which I HATED because they made me gag and want to throw up every time they were in my mouth) in preparation for having it redone. Of course, whitening my teeth meant they got whiter, which made that little spot look even darker (whitening strips don't whiten false teeth!). I've been even more self conscious.

And yesterday was the day. I was so nervous--nervous it would hurt (it had been a long, long time since I'd ever had to have anything done in my mouth besides just a cleaning), nervous it wouldn't look good, and just anxious about it in general. I shouldn't have been. It didn't hurt at all (just that weird feeling that comes from having your mouth numbed), and it looks great again! I can smile without feeling like everyone is staring at my front tooth (which I'm sure you probably weren't....but I wouldn't have believed you if you had told me that). I do have to go back, though, because there's a rough spot on the front that needs to be filed off, which is driving my tongue crazy, as it keeps going up to rub against it.

So.... 20 years....I wonder if that means I won't have to have this done again until I'm 54?? Unfortunately I drink a little more coffee now than I have over the past 20 years (I still don't drink a lot...maybe a few times a month...but I didn't start drinking it at all until about 10 years ago), and I'm sure that contributed to its demise, so it's likely to turn colors a little more quickly this time. Only time will tell, I guess.

Well, I've managed to pass almost an hour now telling you random stories. Maybe I'll try to fall asleep on the couch, in between Rachel's noises on the monitor. I haven't heard any for awhile.

Hopefully you won't hear from me in the middle of the night for awhile (whoops....I just heard her. I guess I spoke too soon!!).

*UPDATE*

Rachel's been waking up at 6:45 like clockwork for weeks now. When did she wake up today, the day I was exhausted and trying to sleep on the couch? 6:00. There was no sleeping. I've been up since 3:30 this morning.

I got my tooth fixed today--and had to take her with me. I tried to make an appointment after my husband came home, but she said, "You can bring the baby, it's okay." I said, "She's not a baby....She'll be running around!" She said, "Oh, it's okay. It won't be the first time." She told me it would only take about 5 minutes, so not to worry about it. But I did worry. I took several toys for her to play with and kept telling her she needed to be a good girl and sit still while the dentist fixed Mommy's tooth. She sat down in the corner and smiled at me as I sat in the big chair. She drew on her magnadoodle and played with her magnetic paper dolls. But then the dentist (who is a friend of ours from church, and whose son is even in her Sunday school class) came in, and she got nervous. A strange man is not her favorite thing (she doesn't know that that's Micah's daddy!). She stared at me with big eyes as he tilted the chair back and I was suddenly laying down. I looked over at her and smiled and said, "See, Mommy's okay! I'm just laying down now." Then he started the drill-like tool, which would sand down my tooth, or whatever they call it in dentistry. She started to cry and said, "Mommy????" (She hates loud noise...the sweeper still terrifies her, so this strange thing making noise going into her Mommy's mouth was very scary for her, apparently!) I looked over and said (with gauze stuffed in my upper lip....) "Ith okay, Rathel! Ith okay!" She whimpered and held her hands over her face the whole time, every so often saying, "Mommy?" and I would try to reassure her that it was fine and I'd be done in a minute. And then we were done. And she was relieved. She smiled as the chair sat me back up again--the sweetest tears in her eyes and runny nose I've ever seen. Poor thing....sympathetic and scared for her Mommy.

But she was so good and sat still in that corner the whole time, just like I had asked her. What a relief. She happily picked out a Mickey Mouse sticker as we left and played with it the whole ride home. When I asked her if she liked the dentist she said, "Yeah!"

Rachel-isms

Here are a few of her latest words and expressions....



*Whenever we're both doing something (eating breakfast....taking a walk....sitting on the couch) she'll say, "Rachel bwekfiss, Mommy bwekfiss. We ALL bwekfiss!.....Rachel wawking, Mommy wawking.....we ALL wawking!"



*Something we've heard a lot of in the last week (because she's had a cold) is, "I need Kweenex. Mommy, can I hab Kweenex pweeze?"



*She loves it when I call her "Silly Rachel." So sometimes she'll get me to say it by doing something dumb and saying, "Siyee Rachel, Mommy. Dat's Siyee," wanting me to repeat her and tell her she's silly.



*One of her favorite new books is Angelina Ballerina, who she calls "Anjayeena Bananeena."

*One of her favorite songs is still "Ochidama Hab a Fahm." Now the animals that live on the farm are usually actual farm animals....not monkeys and elephants like she used to include.

*The girl watches too much Dora, because when I fasten her into her car seat she says, "Seat bewts....so we can be safe!"

*Speaking of her car seat, she now wants to get in it "Aw by MYsewf." (My is always emphasized.) We have to put her in the truck but she can climb up into her seat by herself now, and it makes her feel like a big girl.

*She also enjoys sitting in the "big guwl chay-ah" (big girl chair) to eat a snack or a meal instead of her booster seat/high chair.

She constantly tells me that she's a big girl....but every so often she calls herself "Baby Rachel," so I think she's not quite sure she's ready to be a big girl. I tell her she'll always be my baby....

two and a half

Two and a half years ago today someone arrived in my life and forever changed my world.

It's hard to believe that a little girl who looked like this only yesterday,

now looks like this!

And is starting to use the potty!

And is asking for things using manners (sometimes without even being reminded)!

And knows almost all of the letters and their sounds!

And can sing a whole song.

And can carry on a conversation which we can understand!

And has and expresses her own opinions about things (this is only the beginning of that....).

It's all going so fast. Too fast. Slow down, sweet girl! I want to keep you like this.

hide and seek

A couple of weeks ago I watched one of my friend's little girls, Jillian. She's four, and taught Rachel how to play hide and seek. Except Rachel didn't really understand it and kept talking so Jillian didn't have any trouble finding her, and consequently gave up and didn't want to play anymore.

Rachel, however, had a ball, and asks every couple of days for Mommy to go hide so she can come find me. I can't make it too hard because she gets really scared when she can't find me after a minute or two! Once I hid in the bathroom, behind the door, but with the door still part way open. I thought it was a pretty obvious spot, but she came in the bathroom, didn't see me, and left. So she didn't try the bathroom again, and then almost was in tears because she couldn't find me. So now I make it a little more obvious. It's easy to be obvious because you never know what she's going to count to--sometimes it's 10, but sometimes it's two, so I really don't have much time to hide!!

I try to get her to take a turn hiding, too. Except she usually doesn't leave my sight--she'll go to the couch next to me and cover her eyes, so she thinks I can't see her!! Or sometimes she'll venture out to sit on the stairs...five turns in a row so I'll know exactly where she is. She doesn't understand the concept of finding a new hiding place yet.

But it's a fun indoor pasttime which gets us both laughing, even if she has a lot to learn about the fine art of playing the game.