worth looking into

Rachel's sleeping has still been crazy today. She woke up at 5:30am. I tried to put her back down, and I think she went back to sleep for about 15 minutes or so, but then she was up for good. Her morning nap ended after only 40 minutes, and her afternoon nap was 1 hour 15 minutes (which would seem good, if any of her last three naps had been longer than an hour).

I did get to clean out some drawers and closets that desperately needed attention. I am discovering that, in spite of my best efforts, I am a packrat. I keep STUFF, and then I forget I have it, which means it's rendered useless, even if I end up needing it. So I threw STUFF away, probably to make room for more.

Rachel has added one more sign to the mix: the sign for "potty." She doesn't do it exactly right, and she doesn't do it when she actually needs to use the potty, but she has a consistent gesture (which is almost correct) she makes whenever she hears the word "potty." So cool!

Tonight, I let Jarrad put Rachel to bed while I went out to run some errands and meet my friend John for dinner. This is a first for us; I have always put Rachel to bed, but she is definitely old enough that she doesn't need me to nurse her at bedtime anymore (she never falls asleep when I nurse her anyway). I was nervous (I know--that's silly), but I kept reminding myself that he could call if there was some problem. Of course, there was no problem, and she went right to sleep, as usual. I'll have to admit that, although I was very relieved, I was a little sad that she no longer needs me in that way. I guess I'll have to look into having another baby sometime.

Progress Report

	potty	diaper
peepee	6	2
poop	0	0

cute moment

If you've been to our house, you know we have a sunken living room, which means there is a step down into it. It used to be a nice boundary when Rachel first became mobile, but it wasn't long before she figured out how to crawl up the step. Almost since the day she could crawl up it, she has been able to dive right back down without fear...until yesterday. Now, she is timid to go down the step! Here's a video of her trying to work up the nerve. As an added bonus, in the video, when she abandons the idea of going down, she performs her new monkey crawl. She monkey crawls, I think, because she really wants to stand up and walk, but doesn't want to stop moving long enough to do it.

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel got into a stack of her daddy's coupons today. She spread them everywhere, balled them up in her fist and carried them around, got them stuck to her hands and feet, and scooted across the floor with them. At one point, she was carrying 4 or 5 around. She kept dropping them, and she'd stop to pick them up, which caused her to drop the others, and so on. She was determined not to move on without them though!