In Between

A hearty hello blog readers! I'm hoping I'm able to find all of the photos I've been saving for my next blog entry. Let me begin with the story of "Baby":

"Baby" joined our family several weeks ago. There were several garage sales in our neighborhood and I stopped sailing early to come back and let Jason run to the Chiropractor. I went to as many sales as I could, then came home and opted to finish up the neighborhood on foot, with Rachel. She loves to be in her stroller since she's not in it very often, so she was very happy to join in. The last sale we go to there's an Elmo doll wearing a chicken costume and when you pushed a button it sung this obnoxious rendition of the chicken dance. Next to it, was baby. Rachel was whining and really upset that she couldn't take one of them with her. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she wanted both, but I was only going to give in to one. (I didn't really want to give in to either of them at all!) So $2 later, "Baby" was purchased. She's heavier than she looks because not only is she a doll....but she vibrates and giggles. The first time you hear it, it's really creepy. But Rachel loved her. So much so, that the evening we went to the June Jamboree, we weren't able to go anywhere without "Baby". I was thankful we didn't have to take her into the carnival with us! I was also terrified that Rachel was going to become so attached to "Baby" that she would be a permanent attachment wherever we went. Thankfully, after a few days the novelty has worn off and "Baby" is now a sometimes toy.

A few weeks after we found "Baby" I found the find I've been looking for ALL season!

A toy kitchen!!! Rachel loves it! Although I see them every weekend, I've been trying to find one that's gently used, still clean and doesn't look like it's going to fall apart at any moment. Not only was this one in great shape, it came with all these accessories! There's a kettle that makes noise like the water is boiling, a phone that works, and dishes! All of the stickers are intact and it's perfect. Rachel has been grabbing the forks and plates and pretending to eat off of them. For some reason her favorite thing is to take a small spatula and try to cram it in my mouth as if to say, "eat this!!"

For Father's Day this year Jason was really sick. We were afraid he had pneumonia, so Saturday he was at the Medcheck having tests and xrays done. Come to find out it was thankfully not pneumonia, but he was still really sick. So we took it easy Sunday and I even went so far as to bake cookies, which I rarely do anymore. Probably not the best idea, but I decided to let Rachel try her first "Mommy Cookie"....to which we promptly had to hide the rest of them as she was begging for another one! But I think she enjoyed it....

I thought for sure I had more pictures, but alas. These were the only ones I could find. Now for some updates and stories on Rachel.

In the above photo she's wearing a little green one piece outfit. It's adorable. I remember this story only because of the condition the outfit was in when I peeled it off of her. We have this cute little pool set up on the back deck and it's perfect for her and I to play in. Rachel LOVES this pool and will happily put whatever she can find into the pool for fun. Pieces of grass she's torn off, cloths, clothes, toys, etc. I don't leave the back door open often, but when I do I'm usually somewhere nearby or in another room for just a quick moment. After she ate that cookie it was one of those times where I was in the kitchen with the back door open and probably doing dishes or cooking and went out to check on her and found her standing in the pool, clothes and all. *sigh* The outfit was sopping wet, her diaper was more than soaked through and she was happy as a clam! (We usually keep the pool drained or one of us is out there with her now). 

Rachel has her own language right now. We're used to it, but it's hard for other people to understand her just yet. Heck, even we have trouble understanding her most of the time. But for the most part, she can mumble something and point so we get the idea. About a month or so ago Rachel was at Day Care and was pointing to the sky saying, "Gaa!!" which we have learned means "bird". One of the teachers saw her doing this and said, "Yes, Rachel, God is in heaven!"

Today when I picked her up her teacher, Liz (who is leaving this week and I am SO sad about it!) informed me that while Liz was training the new teacher, Rachel walked up to her and handed the teacher her pants. Why did our child pull her pants off, give them to the teacher, then patiently wait to have them put back on? I have no idea. So now our daughter is learning how to take off clothes. It's just a matter of time before she figures out how to pull the diaper off....

Over the past 6 months you may have noticed me expressing my frustration and stress with Rachel's tantrums and fit throwing. We discovered she would normally only throw tantrums at home and keep her fits to a minimum if she was around other people or outside of the house. This led me to believe we had to be doing something wrong. Jason confirmed this theory. We realized that we weren't setting good boundaries for Rachel and we were letting her run rampant. She'd throw a fit, we'd try to just ignore it and let her get it out of her system. She'd tell us no and we'd try to reason with her. Honestly, I was just desperately trying to be a nice mommy and try to ignore bad behavior and practically throw a parade when she would demonstrate good behavior. Sadly, this is destructive parenting and it was causing us all kinds of grief. So a few weeks ago we started using time outs, getting in her face and talking sternly, and sometimes gently smacking her hands when she would try to hit or scratch at us. Just a few weekends of this new parenting style has worked wonders. She helps me pick up the items she'll throw on the floor. She laughs, plays and listens so much more. The tantrums are down to maybe one or two in the evenings and maybe a few more on the weekend days when we have her at home. It's like we have another child! Having a child that was mean to you, scratching, biting, spitting, kicking and flopping around was becoming tiresome, stressful and frustrating. I seriously didn't know what to do and was NOT happy when Jason did research and came back with the information that he did. But I'm grateful. Being a parent for the last 6 months has not been fun. AT ALL. Now we hardly have to scold her and she listens! Amazing! Now being a parent is actually fun, because now I get to play with her sweet wonderful side and don't always see her monster side!!

This evening I realized that her 18 month pajamas are getting too small. Not a big deal, but I've noticed it's the pajamas that become small first and soon after I notice her clothing getting too small as well. I've been buying a lot of 24 month stuff at garage sales in preparation for next year, but all of it seems to be winter stuff. So I switched gears this past weekend and have started getting both 24 month and 2T clothing that are both winter and summer friendly. Her closet is SO full right now!! But I've had a ball finding everything. This evening I went to Kohl's and got a bunch of stuff from their clearance rack with a 30% off coupon, then got another 15% off at the register. SCORE! I'm also trying to find more matching outfits. Trying to coordinate clothing is becoming a bit taxing, especially if her drawer is full and I can't dig through it easily to find more clothes for her to match! But right now she's at that awkward "In Between" sizes of clothes. Her size 4 shoes are too small, but size 5 are too big. Some of her 18 month stuff is too small, but all of the 24 month stuff is too big. So right now I keep sending her to day care with shoes that are too big because I don't want to small ones to hurt her feet! And I have yet to see size 4.5 shoes for toddlers. Bah.

So....words Rachel is saying now. She understands most of what we're telling her and can identify people if we say their names. For example, "Go show that toy to Aunt Gail!" She knows who Aunt Gail is. But she can't actually say it back. She can say Thank you, which comes out "Sain Su!" and she does say it at the appropriate times. I appreciate that her teacher enforces that at school.

Whenever we are playfully spitting raspberries to each other she'll spit one, I'll spit on, then she'll point her finger at me and say, "No no." Because they aren't allowed to do that at school and they all tell the other children who do that that it's against the rules.

She'll say, "Mommy?" as if she wants to ask a question and normally what follows after I ask, "Yes?" is something that sounds like this, "mmuh meeh Mocken?" Which means something something something Monty. Monty has gone from "Button" to "Mocken" But she does use the upward inflection when she wants to ask a question.

She's starting to want to eat at the table with us, so as often as we can I try to encourage dinner at the table. Her booster seat doesn't work with our table, because her legs won't fit underneath it due to the lip, so I kind of let her stand in the chair next to me while we eat. She's wriggly and will NOT hold still, but it's about the only way I can get her to eat something other than fruit or olives. If I'm eating salmon or steak, she'll happily eat off of my fork if I feed her because she wants to be like us. But put it on her own plate? Forget it. She's not interested. I hate to say she's a picky kid, because she'll eat it if I eat it.

Today I stopped in at Buy Buy Baby on my lunch break and picked up some new sippy cups. The ones we have are hand me downs and were in great shape, but over the course of a few months of using them and they get left downstairs, in the car, or just out, they get really yucky. The kind we have I don't fee confident are cleaned, so I picked up some new ones. Low and behold, they now have sippy cups with no spill straws! She's going to be elated. She LOVES to drink from a straw. I would love to give her a real "cup" as she likes to drink from those too, but she's not mastered the trick of not tilting your head all the way back and letting the drink spill all over your face, front and back. So we'll hold off on that without strict supervision.

Sometimes she'll get so tickled and excited about something that she'll cover her mouth as she laughs. It's adorable.

I know that we use blanket and pacifier to go to sleep, but she's begun calling both of them "Nigh nigh". And sadly, we're losing the "Out of sight out of mind" trick because she'll beg and search for her pacifier when she's in the mood. Some nights we'll get home and I can keep it tucked away on the shelf until bedtime. Other times, like tonight, she insisted on having it all night because she was tired and cranky.

And no wonder! Poor kid was coughing up a storm last night, so badly that it woke her up and she stayed in her bed hollering, "Mommy!!" (Which actually comes out sounding like Mahmmy). I happened to purchase this new medicine that helps sooth kids from coughing and helps them sleep, but it's all natural ingredients. (Can you say Praise the Lord she's old enough for normal medicine!? Oh I can! PTL!!!! Relief for us all!!!) So I took a dose of that into her and then did something I've not done since she was an infant: rocked her to sleep. I loved it. I've shied away from doing that for a long time now as Jason and I both need her desperately to be able to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up. She does a really good job of it, and I knew that she was awake enough after I had her drink the medicine that laying her back down would result in a huge outburst of screams. And like I said, she's been behaving so much better lately, I could resist. So we sat and rocked in my rocking chair and when I laid her back down, she was out. It was such a wonderful moment!

This weekend we'll be heading down to Newburgh where we'll leave Rachel for a week. I love that during this time while she's not in school she gets to spend quality time with all of Jason's family down there. And truthfully, I know all of our family love us, but they get to see a different side of Rachel when we aren't there. If we're there, she's climbing all over one of us (Normally me) and she wants mommy and daddy all the time. Take us out of the equation and other people get to play with her and hold her. So for right now, I love that she gets to spend time down there. No longer do I look at this as a break I desperately need (because we DID need it the last 6 months!) Now I look at it as a great visit with all of her relatives. She gets to see most of my side of the family quite a bit. Plus, this teaches her how to be without mommy and daddy all the time, and I feel that's important.

I think those are all the stories and updates I could remember to put up here. Thanks for reading!