sincerest flattery

I have been going going going for several days now, and I'm starting to feel the affects. Among other events, my cousin DeeDee's two kids, Sarah and David came over for a couple of hours Friday afternoon. Here's what our living room looks like when three kids have free reign...

We visited Rachel's great-grandparents, NaNa and PaPa on Saturday, which did provide a bit of a break, since there were many eyes and hands on Rachel. I was pretty wiped out, though, after driving there and back in one day, especially since Rachel was cranky in the car (she usually is very polite to sleep on long trips).

cute moment

Rachel is really into imitating now. The other day, Rachel was eating a little bowl of applesauce at breakfast, and I poured myself a bowl of cereal. I added the milk (as one usually does to cereal), as Rachel observed. She immediately picked up her sippy cup of milk and "poured" it into her applesauce, and then stirred as if she had added something.

Rachel is also becoming more and more particular, and exceedingly bossy. After she got up this morning, sleepy me lay on the floor in her room, using her little blanket as cover, resting my head on her big teddy bear, while she played around me. Finally, she came over and said, "Up. Up." She then yanked the blanket away and pulled the bear out from under my head. She signed and said, "All finished," (which sounds like "ah in"). I guess naptime was over.

I wore my glasses all day today, too, and Rachel was scolded several times for grabbing at them. Tonight, she must have been tired of looking at them on my face, because, over and over, she pointed to my glasses then to the floor, saying, "byebye, byebye" until I finally removed them. Other things she has ordered me to do lately: hang up the hand towel, put the babywash in its place, sit by her on the step outside, carry her vacuum, sippy cup, AND hat while she walks around outside (when I tried to put any one thing down, she picked it right back up to hand it to me again), brush her hair, give her a sticker (or all the stickers), close a cabinet door I had accidentally left cracked, put cheese back in the refrigerator, put on my shoes, put on Jarrad's shoes, pick her up (she often tries to pick me up when she wants me to carry her somewhere), throw trash away, move the trash can to its usual location...

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel has been affixed to this popper push-toy--a gift from Aunt Mamber at Rachel's birthday. She has played and played and played with it since last Wednesday. I have always called it her "vacuum" because that's what I distract with her when I vacuum the carpet and rugs ("Rachel, where's your vacuum?").

Whenever I clean our wood floors, I always drag our three rugs from the floor to the carpet in our living room, where I can easily vacuum them before replacing them on the clean floors. Rachel has seen this process many times, and, apparently she thought it needed to be done. Unprompted, she walked intently into the kitchen, retrieved the little rug from in front of the sink, dragged it to the living room, ran her "vacuum" across it a time or two, and then dragged it back to the kitchen. I was amazed, although I'll have to say that the rug did not seem much cleaner than it was before.