It would sure be nice . . .

It would sure be nice if Gabi went to sleep as easily at nap time as she did at bed time.

It would sure be nice if Rachel went to sleep as easily at bed time as she did at nap time.

It would sure be nice if Gabi slept about an hour longer at nap time.

It would sure be nice if Rachel slept about an hour less at nap time.

Okay, I'm done complaining (on the blog, for now).

In other news, I am so grateful for the nice weather we've enjoyed this past week. We are having a great time spending time outside.


Guess what Gabi had for her snack this afternoon. (Hint: that's sand on her face around her mouth.)
As much as Rachel likes being outside, she loves her gwinkey (blanket) even more.

ABCs and standing

At bedtime after reading stories, we sing a couple of songs with Rachel. We were going to sing the alphabet song, and I wanted to see if Rachel could do it by herself. So I did it in sign language, and Rachel said the alphabet. I promise I didn't say any of the letters, she did it all on her own. Okay, she messed up on a couple of the letters, but otherwise did a fantastic job. Now I'll just tell you, Rachel is no performer. She will not do it on command, so you'll just have to take my word on this.


Gabi, not wanting to be excluded from all of this bragging, had to step up to the plate and do something spectacular. So this morning she stood all by herself. It was just a few seconds, but unlike Rachel, I was able to get her to duplicate her feat, and I got witnesses. The second time she stood for even longer. I would say the second time was close to 10 seconds.


Unfortunately, not all is sunshine and lollipops. Rachel has taken to hitting lately. Yesterday she slapped me across the face, and she hit Gabi several times. So we have spent more time in time-out lately. Today she slapped Jeff across the face, and so that was more time-out. But it's not all bad either. Afterward Rachel was watching Dora the Explorer. I went downstairs to spend some snuggle time with her. She saw Gabi standing behind the baby gate at the top of the stairs and she said "Gabi, come here." I ask her "Do you want Gabi to come watch Dora with you?" She nodded yes. So I brought Gabi downstairs and sat her between my legs and held Rachel under my arm. Rachel said "Gabi, I hold her." I said "Do you want to hold Gabi?" She nodded yes, so I put Gabi in Rachel's lap, and Rachel held her very tenderly. I called for Jeff to come take a picture.


I hope this hitting thing is a short lived phase, and I hope I can figure out how to handle this appropriately, but at least I'm certain that Rachel has a sweet and tender side too.

Pink

For those of you who know me at all, you know how I feel about the color pink. (For those of you who don't know me, I don't like it.) Rachel, on the other hand feels quite the opposite. This morning I was having some yogurt for breakfast. It was banana cream pie flavored. Yes, it was quite yummy. Rachel said "pink." Okay, that can mean any number of things, so I asked her to clarify. She clarified by saying "pink, pink, pink." Okay, that wasn't so helpful, so I carried her and followed her pointing finger which took me to the refrigerator. I opened it, and it turns out that "pink" is actually yogurt of the strawberry variety, so she had some yogurt too.

Even though pink is Rachel's favorite color, when I had her choose a shirt to wear this morning, I let her pick between a pink one that says I <3 my puppy and her Argentina soccer jersey, she picked the soccer jersey. (It's light blue and white.) Obviously she has good taste!

Happy Half Birthday Rachel

Yes, that's right. Today Rachel is 2½. She is getting to be so grown up! Some of her favorite activities these days include reading, helping with the laundry, the dishes, and sweeping/mopping the floor, playing outside in her sandbox or her jungle gym, and "training" Scout. She is a very sweet big sister to Gabi, and Gabi adores her. Okay, I'll be honest, Rachel isn't perfect with Gabi, but come on, she's 2½. One day she is super. She is gentle, she shares, she is wonderful. The next day she is pushing Gabi out of her way. But overall I have to give her her props.


I can certainly see some of me in her behaviors. A couple of my favorites include when I hear her yell "Jeff, I need help." Gee, I wonder where she heard that one. Hmmm. Another one she pulled on me today: she stuck her index finger out, got a serious look and said "stop." Yeah, that one is me too. Today I was sitting on the floor reading Rachel a book. Rachel's head was against my chest. Gabi was climbing on me at the same time, and she accidentally pulled on Rachel's hair. Rachel seems to have an extremely sensitive head, and Rachel was not happy. She cried, then she held Gabi's hand and stroked it on her arm (Rachel's) and said "soft, soft." I use that one on Rachel all of the time, or at least I used to. She seems to have learned it well.

She really likes counting. Okay, if you consider it to be counting to say "one, four, sick, nine, sick, nine, sick."

Rachel likes reading a lot. She spent about 20 minutes reading this morning.

Reading

I love that Rachel falls asleep reading a book. I used to do the exact same thing. If I had a nickel for each of the flashlight batteries that I killed falling asleep reading with a flashlight I would have a lot of nickels.


Rachel woke up from her nap, but didn't come downstairs right away. I went up to check on her (and wake her up - but she was already awake), and she was standing on her little stool, leaning on her bed, reading a book. I love that Rachel loves books.

Today Gabi is 10 months old

Today Gabi is 10 months old. And what a month this has been! Holy cow! She is really growing up a lot! She has her first 2 teeth. I noticed tooth #1 (actually it was tooth #P) March 2, and tooth #2 (actually #O) I first noticed one week later. She is becoming a skilled crawler. No longer does she utilize the "inch worm" technique. Instead she just crawls the normal way. I miss the inch worm, but she's still a cutie. She loves pulling herself to her feet now. She does it a lot. She even does a little bit of cruising. She also likes "walking" while holding my fingers. She might be the wobbliest walker in the history of walkers, but she's doing it.


A less than wonderful development that has occurred recently is her diaper changing behavior. She used to just lay there passively. Not any more! She can flip on to her stomach so fast! So what I'm doing to combat this is I lay her down, sit on the floor at her feet, then put my feet on her shoulders, and change her diaper as fast as I possibly can. She's not a big fan of my strategy, but it works. Kind of.

Gabi is so incredibly busy all of the time. No more just cuddling. She is always squirming. When she's up she wants down. When she's down she wants up. It's sad because I really like cuddling with her.

I have to tell you a funny story about Rachel. At about 11:50 this morning I heard Rachel riffling around in the kitchen. I went in to see what she was up to, and she was getting out some Ramen. She really likes that. I asked her if she wanted that for lunch, and she said yes. So I had her help me make it (which she really liked doing). I also peeled and sliced an apple. Rachel went to town on that lunch. She was shoveling in her food as if she hadn't eaten in a week. When she was done she lifted up both hands and said "finished!" The ASL sign for "finished" is waving both hands, and that's what she was doing, but it looked like she had just finished an eating competition. It was pretty funny. Or maybe you had to be there.

Parenting Fail!

The whole problem started with two facts. 1. We don't have much counter space in our kitchen. 2. Both Rachel and Gabi benefit from a cool-mist vaporizer. We have (had) two cool-mist vaporizers. One of them is in the girls' room, and the other one I kept downstairs. Because of the lack of counter space I unwisely kept it on the stove top. Jeff was fixing dinner yesterday, and he accidentally turned on the hot plate that the plastic cool-mist vaporizer was sitting on. Oh no! It started melting. I rushed into the kitchen and saw what had happened, and the first thing out of my mouth was "oh crap!" We examined the humidifier, and decided it was ruined and Jeff said "oh crap!" We moved the humidifier next to the trash for disposal and Rachel, pointing to the humidifier said "crap." Oops! We really need to watch what we say.

This morning Rachel pointed to the humidifier and said "crap" several more times. I hope if we are careful she will forget that word. I have my doubts, though. A year ago when I was in the hospital Jeff taught Rachel a sign for "rabbit." He mimicked hopping and said "hop hop hop." It was a made up sign, but to this day Rachel never calls a rabbit a rabbit, or even a bunny. She always calls it a "hop" and uses the made up sign that Jeff taught her. She has a long memory.

In other news, today was an exciting day. Jeff's youngest sister Michelle came home from her LDS mission in Buenos Aires Argentina. We met her at the airport, then went to Cheddars for lunch. Afterward we went to Jeff's parents' house and spent the rest of the day there and enjoyed being together as a family again.

Scout

I took Scout to the groomer for a haircut today. I took him in in the morning, and left him there. We had to wait our turn for the lady at the front desk, so we just stood in the entryway. Another lady who was leaving cautioned me that there was dog poopoo right behind me. Hmmm, when we got there there was no poopoo. I know it wasn't me, Rachel, or even Gabi. Must have been Scout letting them know just what he thought about the idea of being there.

After we dropped him off we went to a class. When we got home the first thing Rachel did was call for Scout. I told her (again) that we had left him at the groomer for a haircut. We had lunch, then Rachel took a nap. During her nap I got a phone call that Scout was ready to come home, so when Rachel woke up I told her we were going to pick up Scout. She was very enthusiastic about that, and as we stepped outside onto the porch Rachel called "Scout!" I explained (again) that we had to go in the car and pick him up. Rachel was very happy to see him. The groomers even gave him a St. Patrick's Day bandanna. He looks so cool (and scrawny).


Gabi just keeps growing up and getting bigger and more active. Today her 2nd tooth poked through her gum.

More milestones for Gabi

You would have thought after the busy week Gabi had last week growing up, she could slow down a bit and give me a break, but no. Monday night Gabi started cruising. (For you non-parents out there, that means that she walks using furniture for support.) She is pretty shaky on her pins, but that doesn't stop her. If you don't get to distracted watching Rachel's antics in the video below, you will see Gabi walking, using the exersaucer for support.

Then yesterday, I noticed that her first tooth has finally started to break though her gum. I mean seriously! Is it too much to ask that she stay a baby?!

The girls got a new toy kitchen. Hopefully it will provide hours of fun. It has so far provided some fun pictures!

Oh what a night!

At about 3:30 this morning I woke up hearing Rachel crying. So I got up to check on her. She was standing at the baby gate which blocks her doorway. I held her for a minute or two, gave her a kiss, and put her back in bed. Of course the noise woke Gabi up a little, but I decided to leave her alone so that she could put herself back to sleep. Gabi was crying, but only just a little. I didn't go straight back to bed because I wanted to make sure Gabi got back to sleep, and sure enough, five or ten minutes later she was quiet, so I went back to bed myself. Five or ten minutes later Gabi started crying again. (Grrr!) She wasn't crying much, so I decided to give her a chance to fall back asleep on her own. 14 minutes later, all was quiet again in the girls' room. Gabi wakes up earlier than Rachel does, so I got her up, changed her diaper and fed her. Jeff went in to wake up Rachel so he could say goodbye to her before he went to work, and noticed that she had thrown up some time over night. Poor thing. How did I not notice? Anyway, we got her up, put her in the bath tub, put her sheets in the wash, and then called the pediatrician for any medical advice they might choose to give me.

Now Rachel is lying in our bed drinking water and watching Up. The sheets are in the dryer, and Gabi is playing in the clean clothes that I now need to fold.

Just another day in the life . . .