where to begin

Rachel has been going full speed ahead for several days now. On Saturday, Jarrad helped our pastor move ALL day, so he was exhausted. Rachel didn't take a morning nap, and only had a one-hour afternoon nap. Sunday, she missed her morning nap as usual, and took a 1.5-hour afternoon nap. After her nap, we went swimming with Aunt Mamber at GiGi and Pop's house, and then Jarrad and I visited our former church in the evening. It was so nice to be back! Rachel and I spent the night at GiGi's house, and Rachel woke up happy and ready to play--at 4:45am!! I thought I had her settled back down enough to sleep some more, until a train came down the tracks right by their neighborhood. The horn scared Rachel, and we were up for the day! We were in the car headed home by about 8:30am, and Rachel quickly fell asleep, and she stayed asleep when I parked the car in our driveway 40 minutes later. Not wanting to wake her, and not caring to get anything else done, I put my seat back and took a nap, too, and we both slept until I heard her say, "mama" at 10:05am. She took a pretty good afternoon nap, and probably would have almost been back on track, but we went to a dinner party last night. Rachel wasn't in bed until 9:00pm, and when she woke up at 6:00am today, she was in the worst of moods. Nine hours of sleep is not enough for this child! She struggled through the day, and managed to take two decent naps, but she barely made it to her 8:00pm bedtime. I was wishing I had put her to bed earlier.

My cousin Andrea came over after Rachel's morning nap, and the three of us met Aunt KiKi and Cousin Tyler for lunch. Tyler has always been a big boy, and, although he is only 7 months older than Rachel, he outweighs her by about 11 pounds. But I am pretty sure Rachel out-ate Tyler today. We had pizza, and Rachel kept asking for more and more and more, until I finally cut her off. The mushrooms seemed to be her favorite. Tyler had just been to the mall to buy new shoes for his growing feet, and, since he was so proud, he insisted on wearing them out of the store, with the store-provided nylon flesh-colored socks sticking out around his ankles.

Progress Report

Rachel has continued to do great with the potty, although her fatigue was clearly affecting her by tonight. She waved her fist and told me she needed to potty (GOOgoo!), but screamed when I tried to sit her there. I picked her up to leave the bathroom, and she'd give me a really serious look and told me she needed to potty. We cycled through this a couple times before I was really frustrated, which upset her even more, which made me feel bad. So she was standing there on the bathroom floor, as naked as the day she was born, and I was hugging her, attempting to console her and calm her down, when she peepeed all over my foot. She needed to potty, alright.

cute moment

Rachel has figured out how to give real kisses, smacking noise and all. She has been handing out big, wet, open kisses for months, but the noise is new. She doesn't get it right every time, but she's learning. Tonight, she went in our bathroom and talked to the potty for a moment, and then kissed the potty lid. Ew.

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel has been playing with lots of non-toys. In this picture, she is carrying a silver gift bag. She kept it for a while this afternoon, putting things in and taking things out, until, finally, the bottom fell through. She didn't seem to mind, though.