sleep talker

A couple of nights ago, I had been asleep for a while, and Jarrad was just turning in, when we heard on the baby monitor, out of the silence of Rachel's room, "OKAAAAAAAAY!" followed by silence.

Rachel is apparently dreaming more now. We've caught her talking in her sleep on more than one occasion, but the "okay" incident was the funniest to date. Rachel uses this excited expression fairly often (ex. "Rachel, do you want to go outside?" "OKAAAAAAAAY!"). It is usually followed by dancing around in circles and trying to figure out which direction to go to make the suggestion a reality.

This afternoon, she took an unusually long nap. Forty minutes into it, she said "Elmo, Elmo, Elmo." She mumbled and grunted a bit more and stirred some before falling silent again.

She's getting funnier and funnier, that girl, and she talks so much now! She seems to narrate everything she does, even when no one is listening. She entertains herself well, so I find myself often forgetting to put her in her room for morning quiet time. I am able to get a lot done while she either follows me around, imitating everything I do or while she plays by herself with whatever toy interests her at the moment.

It is also most fun to see how she sees me. Last week, I was going through my closet and pulling out clothes to donate. Since then, Rachel sometimes goes into my closet, where she thumbs through my lower-hanging clothes, thoughtfully saying, "nooo...nooo...nooo..." She's so helpful. She copies my words, my inflection--everything. She even recreates our routines when playing alone with her stuffed animals and dolls, and I hear her tell her little friends things I say to her. As her vocabulary grows, life just gets more and more interesting...