what's in these carrots??

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PopPop!! In honor of PopPop, I tried to cook carrots for Rachel again. My first several attempts failed, even though she likes the Gerber carrots. When PopPop and Uma were last here, I tried again, this time cooking the things to death, hoping that was the problem. Of course that wasn't the problem at all, and Rachel entertained us with various crazy faces. Believe me, the video camera was out. PopPop suggested I use baby carrots (which are sweeter) instead of the big kind I'd been using, so, today, I did. And Rachel still refused them. She still likes Gerber carrots though. Tomorrow I'm trying peas, which she's loved coming out of the little plastic Gerber pack. If she doesn't like those, I'm contacting WRAL 5 on Your Side to investigate...what in the world is Gerber doing to that food?? The ingredients say: "carrots, water." There must be something else in there, or they'd taste like carrots. And, here I am again, regretting I didn't start doing what's healthier from the beginning instead of putting it off. Sheesh.

As for sleep, last night was great until about 5:45am. She went down relatively easily for her nap this morning (1.5 hours), and then took over an hour to go to sleep this afternoon. I'm trying hard to let her figure this out, but after an hour, I had to help her along. I finally put her down, asleep, around 3.

Progress Report

	potty	diaper	floor
peepee	7	6	1	oops!
poop	1	0

I tried two potty experiments today (are you figuring out that this is not really work for me, but more like a project?). Late this morning, I put Rachel on the potty as usual, and she pooped. I was very happy because it's been several days since she pooped on the potty. I knew peepee was coming shortly, but I didn't have the heart to make her stay seated until it came. So I dangerously left her diaperless, wondering what she'd do. She pulled herself up at the window, so i shoved a towel between her legs on the floor (just in case). Sure enough, a couple minutes passed and she looked away from the window, gazed over at the potty, and peepeed. She gets it! Am I going to throw her on the potty now every time she looks at it? No--she also loves to play with the potty. But at least I know she's aware of what her body's doing (something toddlers often have trouble with after ignoring it for so long), and I know, eventually, she'll be able to communicate that to me with the sign for potty or whatever.

The second experiment was this afternoon. I put her on the potty and she protested even more than usual (she was sleepy). I set her on it twice and she got up without trying both times (believe me, I do know when she's tried). So, on a whim, I put her Eeyore stuffed animal on it, made the psspss noise I usually make when she goes and to signal her to go, got him up and said, "Yay, Eeyore peepeed on the potty, yay!!" as Eeyore jumped up and down. I sat her back on there, and she went, no hesitation! Weird!

cute moment

Rachel has decided it's more interesting to play with her bib than eat (especially my home-cooked carrots, of course). She yanks on her bib and pulls it up over her face. She puts it in her mouth (Aunt Mamber says she's wiping off her tongue), and she finally pulls it off and waves it around. Really, the bib has become more of a mess-maker than a mess-preventer. She also found the bear on the back of her highchair, and she turned often to give him a kiss or to wack him and laugh.

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel played by the windows a lot today. She has two sets of windows in her room. One set is really tall, starting almost at the floor, so it's the perfect place for Rachel to pull up and look outside. There she found a little plastic piece that is supposed to attach to the blinds so you can twist them closed or open. It had fallen off, and it was the perfect size for Rachel to pick up and hold tightly in her hand, which she did for a loooong time. Even when she wasn't actually playing with it, if she dropped it, she immediately looked to pick it up again. I stayed close by her, but I only had to keep her from putting it in her mouth a couple of times. I think she just enjoyed having it in her hand.

Here is Rachel, concentrating on the task at hand.