know when to walk away

I think we've found Rachel's magic bedtime! I shouldn't make such claims yet, though, because it's only been three days. Rachel went to bed at 8:25pm Friday night and woke up at 7:00am Saturday. She was in bed at 8:30pm Saturday night and woke up at 7:30am Sunday. She missed her morning nap because of church, and her afternoon nap only lasted 1.5 hours, so I didn't feel bad putting her to bed at 7:30pm Sunday night. Our sleep was interrupted this morning because our really old smoke alarm, which is stationed just outside Rachel's bedroom door, malfunctioned at 5:30am. It scared Rachel--she was screaming and shaking, so confused. I held her tight and rocked her while Jarrad cut the wires to make the terrible horn-like noise stop. As I rocked her, she collapsed her head on my shoulder and went right back to sleep once the alarm was disengaged (she never lets me rock her to sleep anymore!). I put her back in her crib and she slept until 8:10am! I got up and did a few things before she even woke up. It was almost 9:00am when we ate breakfast. It felt like vacation! I wasn't sure if I should even try to put her down for a morning nap, but she started acting tired, so I put her down to sleep at 10:00am. By the afternoon, she was almost back on her normal schedule, though her afternoon nap was only 1 hour. She was in bed at 8:15pm tonight, so we'll see if the trend continues.

We've had a lot of visitors in the last few days. We saw MiMi and Poppy on Friday, GiGi on Saturday, our friends Nick & Stacie Saturday night, our church Community group came over Sunday night, and my friend Shawna (pic) came over this afternoon.

Progress Report

I thought I was giving her too much credit at first, but Rachel has definitely learned that she can use this potty stuff to manipulate me. Let's just say she knows when to hold 'em, knows when to fold 'em.

On a happy note, Rachel actually used her "On-the-Go" potty when we were at the mall this afternoon. Her diaper was dry when we got home! I was so proud, and she seemed to be too. Maybe I should use that potty when we're home, too.

cute moment

Rachel gets so silly right before bedtime. Last night and tonight, she was really giggly, so, when I carried her to the crib, she arched her back into a little backbend and laughed. She started this a few days ago--for whatever reason, she arched her back when I was holding her, and I responded by saying, "WOOOOOOAH, Rubber Band!" She thought that was funny, so it's our newest game. It's especially funny to her at bedtime, and the best part is that she stretches out her little neck, making it so kissable. It must be a ticklish spot because she laughs and laughs. And I put her in her crib, and she falls right to sleep. Good baby!

Here's a video we took tonight at dinner. Rachel had been playing peek-a-boo, but we couldn't convince her to do it for the camera. She thought we were pretty funny trying, though. At the end of the video, she says "bib." This is also how she says "shoes." I think it is so...creative I guess...and cute. Ha!

non-toy toy of the day

Friday afternoon, we met MiMi & Poppy at the mall, and MiMi really wanted to buy Rachel some shoes (her sandals are almost too small!). We figured out that the smallest Crocs fit her now, so we went all over the mall looking for a pair. We couldn't find any! So today, I took Rachel to a different mall and bought her some Cotton Candy colored size 4/5 Crocs! They are too cute, and Rachel is extremely excited. She played with her new "toy" until bedtime.

another nap, another dollar

Rachel slept in until 6:25am today! I was thrilled to see the sun was up before Rachel, so I was in a good mood. She started getting cranky around 8:30am, right on schedule for her 9:00am nap. However, for some reason, for whatever reason, it took her a full hour to go to sleep. She slept and slept and slept, until 12:10pm. What a nice break for Mommy!

Between naps, we visited Ms. Kathy, who lives really close by. She has a son who grew up with Jarrad, so she's almost like family! She also JUST became a grandma, but her grandbaby lives on another continent for a few more weeks. I thought it might be nice for her to get a baby fix (even though I'm feeling less and less like Rachel's a baby anymore) as she looks forward to meeting her granddaughter, Ava. Rachel, as usual, enjoyed exploring Ms. Kathy's home and picking up Ms. Kathy's things, and sitting on Ms. Kathy's tiny footstool.

We came home right at what I thought would be a good time to put Rachel down for her afternoon nap. 3:15pm did not work out for her though. After going back and forth with her several times, I gave up around 4:30pm. Aunt Mamber came over, and Rachel was really glad to see her (it's been over a week!), so that was a good distraction for super-tired Rachel. She was in bed tonight at 7:30pm. I wonder what time morning will come for us...

Progress Report

	potty	diaper
peepee	5	8
poop	3	1

Does anyone out there think these are ridiculous numbers? She was doing fairly well today until her afternoon nap attempt. The problem is that she seems to have figured out that she can talk to me from her crib. So about 10 minutes after I lay her down, I hear her in the crib: "GOOgoo GOOgoo GOOgoo." She's saying potty...does she need to potty? I don't want to ignore her if she needs to potty. I gave her a chance to potty before her nap and she didn't go. Did she hold it so she could call on me like this? Fine, I'll go up there. And so I go. And her diaper is wet (or dirty, like it was this afternoon). I sit her on the potty. She's amused and doesn't do a thing. She's back in the crib, I leave, and wait...10 minutes later the sequence repeats. What in the world??? This afternoon, she went through THREE diapers like this. The first was dirty, and the other two were just barely wet, as if she had squeezed some out so she'd have an excuse to get out of the crib. Is that possible? She seems to little for such complicated manipulation...er...

cute moment

While Rachel was awake in her crib this morning, I heard her on the monitor, laughing. What made her laugh? I wish I knew what she was thinking sometimes!

non-toy toy of the day

Ms. Kathy has a wonderful set of bunnies who sit on the floor by her entertainment center. Rachel tried to pick them up, but they were too heavy. She scooted them around for a minute and then moved on to easier decor.

lightweight

Rachel had her 1-year physical today (a little late, I know, but it was all I could get!). She weighed in at 19lb 13oz--20% for her age. Her height was 45%, and her head circumference was 80%! I guess she has a big brain. Or a thick skull, but I'm voting for the former. She also endured a finger prick and three shots. I tried to prepare her all day by telling her the doctor would be giving her a "poke," and I poked her leg with my fingernail when I said it. She didn't really seems to get it though. I kept a happy voice when she got the finger prick, though, and she didn't even grimace at that. The shots made her squirm and wail, but it only lasted about 45 seconds, and she was back to normal (playing with her sandals). She also enjoyed wearing some colorful band aids on her wounds.

Aunt Julie and Mr. Landin came over this evening, which sent Rachel spiraling into show-off mode. She was so silly, and she showed off all her newest tricks, including walking wheelbarrow-style (I hope to get a picture soon).

Progress Report

	potty	diaper
peepee	5	5
poop	1	0

Rachel opened the drawer under our oven today, and she pulled out the cheesecake pan--the one with no bottom. She said "GOOgoo" (which means, "potty"), put it on the floor, and sat on it. Ha!

cute moment

Rachel begged me to take off my Crocs all morning. She followed me around signing, "help, please" and grabbing at them, whining and whimpering. I'm trying to teach her that she can't always have them, so I kept repeating, "Mommy needs her shoes right now." When I finally finished what I was doing, I sat down on the couch for a minute. Rachel asked for my shoes again, and I said, "Yes, Rachel, you may play with my shoes." I removed them from my feet. She looked at them and giggled, and then bent down and gave them a hug! Oh, happy reunion.

non-toy toy of the day

We visited our neighbor Mr. Henry today, and Rachel found a pen and a pencil she enjoyed carrying around...and around and around and around. His house has the perfect flow for Rachel to walk circles. Mr. Henry had a stroke a year ago, so he uses a wheelchair. He seemed to enjoy watching Rachel with all her energy as she made herself right at home.

she knows my name

I had no idea how good it would feel to get back into the routine of things today. I didn't work terribly hard getting things back in order, but I just enjoyed being home, where there are quiet, still, alone minutes. In a day or two, I'm sure we'll be getting stir-crazy again, but, for now, it's nice.

Rachel seems really glad to be home too. She slept until 6:45am, which helped me. She had a hard time settling into her naps, but both naps were 1.5 hours long once she went to sleep. I really she had trouble because she was having a great time re-exploring everything. We were only gone a week, but we have noticed she grew. She can reach a bit higher than she could before we left, and she gained a new skill or two while we were gone. Amazing!

Progress Report

	potty	diaper
peepee	6	6
poop	1	0

cute moment

Last week, Rachel finally really started calling me, "mama." She has said it before, but she's never really "talked" to me the way she talks to "dada." But now, sometimes while she's playing, she'll stop and say "mama" and come over and give me a hug. It melts my heart.

non-toy toy of the day

We still have some luggage from our vacation lying around. Rachel loves pulling things out of bags, so she has helped us unpack by going through and picking out every little thing she can find out of every bag she can find. I got most of it cleaned up this afternoon, but she really had a great time while it lasted.

vacation: over

Last week was our first official summer beach vacation with Rachel. Wow. Taking a baby on vacation is a lot of work. In fact, I think Jarrad and I have a new appreciation for how much work our parents had to do to make our vacations happen. When we have experiences like this, we are often amazed to think about families with 4 or 5 children...how do they do it? I've always wanted a house full of children. If that is what the Lord has in store for us, and if I can manage to keep blogging, I guess we'll all find out how it happens!

Jarrad and I had originally planned to come home tonight, Monday night, but we decided to come home yesterday afternoon. Aunt Katie rode home with us, which was fun, since we don't get to see her much. However, we decided to leave in the afternoon instead of following our usual don't-take-a-car-trip-longer-than-two-hours-before-Rachel's-bedtime rule. Unfortunately, we failed to consider that our trip would be falling at the end of the weekend following the week of July 4th, when EVERYONE is at the beach. What should be a 3-hour trip turned into 4.5 hours, and Rachel, who slept peacefully for the first 1.5 hours, was completely distressed by the time we got home. And so was I. I rode in the backseat with her, and tried to entertain her. She went back and forth from being content to being hungry to being fussy to being sleepy to being downright mad. I felt so sorry for her, poor baby.

It was really nice to have an extra day at home, though. Jarrad's still technically on vacation, and we decided to continue vacating. We napped when Rachel napped, and we gave ourselves a free pass to relax. This afternoon, we went to the mall and walked around, and Rachel went to bed around 8:15pm (we've been pushing the time back bit by bit, and it seems like it might be working...maybe).

Progress Report

This week turned out to be such a great potty week. Rachel seems to be motivated again, and she is more consistently telling us when she needs to go, having a dry diaper, and then cooperatively sitting down and going. She acts proud of herself, and she seems to look forward to her reward (jumping up and down) and saying "bye bye, peepee" as we watch it flush down the toilet. She even went potty at the mall tonight (I bought her an On the Go Potty) I'm not getting my hopes up, though, as I anticipate more setbacks like the many we've had in our 5-month journey so far.

cute sad moment

This is the saddest cute moment I've ever reported. On the loooong trip home, strapped-down Rachel went through 5 to 10-minute stretches when all she did was look at me, whimpering, with sad, watery eyes and a frown, signing "help, please, help, please, help, please." It broke my heart.

non-toy toy of the day

Rachel is more in love with shoes than ever before. She has begun acting like the queen of shoes, even at times demanding that we remove our shoes in her presence. When we take them off for her, she often just looks at them and continues playing with something else, as if she just wants to have the option of playing with the shoes. Crocs are her favorites. There were lots of Crocs at the beach, and Rachel took turns "wearing" them as she pranced around the condo or on the beach. Jarrad's Uncle Billy gave her the nickname, "Croc." (Incidentally, Uncle Billy played football at NC State, where his nickname was "peahead," because he wore the smallest helmet on the team.)

I'VE BEEN TAGGED

My friend Denise tagged me! I've never done a "tag" before, so this might be kind of fun!

Here are the rules: Tagees should write a blog post of eight random facts about themselves. At the end of the post, more bloggers are tagged. Go to their blog, leave a comment telling them they're tagged.

1. I love to sing. Because I love to sing, I learned to play guitar. What's better than singing with the radio?--singing to your own strum, without any competition from the real singer.

2. I love to dance. Before I had Rachel to occupy my time, but after I became a real, married grown-up, I would occasionally put on some hiphop really loud and dance around the living room. In college, I loved going to dance clubs on Thursday nights.

3. I've never had more than a sip of alcohol (gross), never smoked a cigarette (or anything else), don't drink coffee, and am not Mormon.

4. I like to consider myself a bit of a rebel, counter-culture even, but I'm really a goody-two-shoes. Wait...maybe that is counter-culture...

5. I'm an athlete, but I hate to exercise. You will never catch me running without a ball in my hands or feet. Why do people run? Chase me, and I can run. Give me a ball, and I can run. Otherwise, where are all these people going?? 26.2 miles and you end up right back where you started. No thanks.

6. I have the greatest family, and I married the greatest family. I have two cousins and a brother who live within a short drive (and we actually keep up with each other), and Jarrad has three sisters, a mom & stepdad, grandparents, an aunt, and two cousins close by, too. Almost everyone we love dearly lives in our state, so we get to see them all often, and, most importantly, Rachel gets to know them too!

7. I speak Spanish, and I love learning about language acquisition and speech development. Cued language is a fascination of mine, and I practice it at random times. Rachel finds it funny, too.

8. It doesn't come into question as much anymore, but in my youth, my ethnicity was a ready conversation-maker. In high school, the coach of our rival basketball team called me, "the little Chinese girl." My junior year, I had my picture made at the prom with a Cambodian boy from my school. His family all wanted to know if I was Cambodian when the pictures came back. When I speak Spanish to Hispanics, they always ask where I'm from. A person once asked me if I was Czechoslovakian, and I used to always get questions from tellers and cashiers to the tune of, "Are you all white?" For the record, I am "all white" (whatever that means). I think my family has some German blood and maybe something else European, but, as far as I can tell, there's nothing interesting in our heritage.

Who I'll tag:
Lisa
Christina
Kelley
April
Jay
Shelly

at le beach

We've had a busy few days getting ready for our beach trip. We arrived late Monday night, and Rachel got to experience the beach for the first time Tuesday morning! Of course, she loved it. She enjoyed the breeze, she waved at everyone who strolled past, and she walked right into the ocean. She has agreed to wear a hat every time we've gone out, and she doesn't even seem to mind when we turn her around and redirect her away from the water. She finds tiny seashells to hold tightly in her hand, and she just walks and walks and walks. Her hat makes her have tunnel vision, but she doesn't care. Jarrad's whole family is here, so there are lots of eyes and hands to help with Rachel, which makes it almost like a real vacation for a mommy! It's so much fun watching Rachel discover new things, and there's a lot of new discoveries for her here.

Progress Report

As usual, Rachel did really well our first day here. She hardly used any diapers (2 I think), and she didn't fuss when we wanted her to sit on the potty. Today, it's back to the same potty struggle. She's even made a habit of not going poopy on the potty sometimes! She's been doing so well with that for more than 3 months, so I don't know what is going on. I can tell you this, though: it's frustrating.

cute moment

NaNa made this little shirt for Aunt Mamber, who wore it at the beach when she was about Rachel age (Rachel's birthday is just 4 days after Aunt Mamber's!). Since GiGi already had a picture of Aunt Mamber on the beach, she decided to take a picture of Rachel in the same shirt, and then a picture of Aunt Mamber with Rachel. Won't that be cute in a frame?

non-toy toy of the day

I was sure that her non-toy toy here at the beach would be seashells. But I'm afraid there's a non-toy toy that will always take the prize: shoes. Thanks to PopPop for showing her how to "wear" shoes like this.