Rachel Update

Rachel is just so cute, and she is growing up so much. Here is a brief synopsis of some of her latest exploits.

Rachel can use sign language. Here is a list of the words she can sign.
Dog (her absolute favorite)
Dad (her second favorite)
Cracker (this means cracker, or any other food available)
Banana
Eat
More
Thank you
Please
Milk
Juice
Hat
Shoes

Rachel is starting to talk, just a little bit. Here is a list of words that she can say (sort of).
Dog (her absolute favorite – sounds like daw)
Dad (her second favorite – sounds like dah)
Milk (sounds like muh)
The three words above she says as she does the sign. That’s how I know what she’s saying.
Banana (sounds like balábalá)
Meh (not sure what this means, but she says it a lot. Actually as I think about it, I think she is saying “get that for me.”)

Notable in its absence from either list is Mama. Don’t get me wrong, she is capable of forming the word “mama,” she just chooses not to use it about me. I’m cool with it though, because she is really good at giving me kisses. Really wet, open mouth, tongue sticking out kisses. They are memorable!

Today was poopie. I don’t mean bad, I mean literally poopie. She started the day by pooping in the bathtub. This time Jeff was already at work, so he couldn’t rescue me, and I had to clean it up myself. It wasn’t that bad, though, in fact I nearly forgot about it. Until this evening. I had just changed a wet diaper, and her new diaper had not been on her for more than 10 minutes when she had the nastiest blow-out poopie diarrhea diaper that smelled awful. Again Jeff was gone, so I had to clean that one up too. (Not fair!) It was the closest I have come to tossing my cookies this pregnancy.

We spent the last half hour before bedtime watching Baby Signing Time Volume 2. While she watched it, she sat at the drum kit that goes with our Guitar Hero World Tour game, and played the drums. She held the sticks basically correctly, and played on the different drums. She didn’t pound or bang, she diliberately played. I was impressed. Occasionally she would drop one of the sticks (I can relate to that – it happens to me too), and I would pick it up and give it back to her, and each time without any prompting from me she signed thank you. Isn’t that sweet?

Yesterday (Sunday) I wanted to see if I could duplicate the success I had with the ponytails of last week. You be the judge. Frankly I think I didn’t do quite as well, but not bad either. This time I had the foresight to take pictures before church, when my handiwork was still fresh.

I even got a shot of the back.

One of Rachel’s favorite pasttimes these days is to wear Jeff’s or my shoes. She tries to put them on, and usually gets frustrated because she can’t quite do it, so I help her, then she happily walks away. Here she is navigating through her toys wearing my winter boots.

And at the end of the day, we are all glad that she goes to sleep so well. We had a few rough days last week at bedtime, but she seems to be back on track again for now. I’ll enjoy it as long as I can.