where in the world

Our camera batteries are completely shot, so here's one old picture of Rachel...

So where have we been? Where do I begin? Rachel has had an ugly tummy virus for almost two weeks, but it seems to be clearing up. Insanely, I woke up Tuesday morning and decided I should take Rachel to Tennessee to visit her Great-Grandma, who was there visiting relatives. For a variety of reasons, Rachel and I never make it up to the mountains of West Virginia where she lives. Where she was in Tennessee is only 1.5 hours from where Jarrad's dad lives. So, I made all the phone calls to line it up, threw everything in the car, including Rachel, and headed out. We stopped by my hometown and picked up my dad, who graciously accompanied us on our roadtrip as entertainment for Rachel. So on Tuesday afternoon, we landed at Jarrad's dad's house, where we spent the night, and then the four of us (Rachel, Poppy, PopPop, and I) headed to Tennessee and back on Wednesday, spent the night again, and then back through my hometown and back to Raleigh on Thursday. (Hopefully I'll get pictures from the visit from Jarrad's cousin soon.) Whew!

We returned exhausted and sickly. I recovered, but Rachel is quite sick with a nasty headcold. After two weeks of the stomach stuff, I decided to take her on to the doctor on Friday, who predictably told us it was just two viruses back-to-back, and we just have to wait it out. On a funny note, Rachel wasted no time trying to boss the doctor, and the doctor pointed out several times that Rachel is "very grown up for her age." Rachel peepeed in the potty and blew her nose while we were there. What a show off.

Although Rachel's vocabulary has been a bit slow to grow, she finally started saying "more" and "please" this week. She has used the signs for these words for months, but she seems to finally have made the connection between the sign and the actual word (now she runs around saying "muh, muh, muh" for everything). She still has yet to say anything with the "ee" sound (she says "mama" for MiMi), but I do try not to get anxious--difficult, isn't it??

cute moment

Of course, Rachel did not cooperate with my roadtrip plan, which was for her to sleep on the way to pick up my dad and then stay awake with him in the backseat on the way to the mountains. She did the opposite, and she yelled essentially the whole 1.5 hours we were in the car alone. My nerves were completely shot, and, at one point, I turned around to her and said, "Rachel--that is TOO LOUD!" I guess I sounded kind of mean, because she looked so hurt and sad. Her bottom lip poked out and her brow furrowed, as if she was fighting back tears. She silently peered out the window, but she perked up shortly, and recommenced yelling. I felt bad that I hurt her feelings, though.

But the cutest thing for me was when we were spending our second night at PopPop and Uma's house. Rachel and I were sharing a room, which Rachel did not realize on night one. She woke up at 1:15am on night two, and she insisted from her pack n play that she needed to potty. In an effort to keep her from waking up the whole house, I set her on the potty, where she proved to be wide awake. As I sat in front of her, struggling to keep my eyes open, she looked at me, wide-eyed, with a smile all over her face. She was still, and seemed to be studying my face. She reached out and patted my cheek a few times, and then she wanted hugs. My little sweetie didn't really need to potty, but that was okay. I put a new diaper on her and attempted to put her back to bed, which she protested LOUDLY. So, I put her in bed with me, and I told her that she had to go to sleep or she'd have to go back in the pack n play. She seemed to understand that, because she lay down quietly. But she was wide awake, and she tossed and turned, talked to herself and giggled. After about 45 minutes, I decided to try again to put her to bed. She cried. She screamed. I tried to ride it out, and she settled down in about 10 minutes, but started right back up again. So I gave in, and she must have worn herself out, because she ended up falling right to sleep lying next to me--something that hasn't happened in a really really long time. I didn't sleep all that well, but it was really sweet to sleep by my baby. She stirred a few times after 5:00am, but she quickly curled up on me and went back to sleep every time. She was finally up for the day around 6:30am, and she was in a surprisingly great mood.

One of Rachel's favorite things about our visit was feeding the ducks that hang out at the pond in PopPop and Uma's neighborhood. This morning, before I went to Rachel when she woke up, I heard her calling the ducks. Uma called the ducks over by putting her fist to her mouth and quacking. Rachel's interpretation of that is putting her open palm to her mouth and saying "duck duck duck duck duck." She is still talking about our trip, including Uma and the ducks.

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel took a decent nap today, for the first time in almost a week. She was in a good mood between nap and bedtime, and she spent a lot of it folding and stacking her diapers. She hasn't played with her diapers in a long time, since we don't use them much. Rachel also continues to play with the bucket of bubble gum she got from the big gorilla at the mall on Halloween.

But her favorite play right now comes from her shopping cart and her vacuum (the popper push toy). She prefers that someone push one while she pushes the other, so she is constantly insisting on that. She has enjoyed two visits from GiGi this week, and GiGi has been a willing playmate.