Wednesday, September 23, 2009

In which Rachel invents the sleepover

Yesterday Rachel found a toy that has been buried at the bottom of the toy box for a while. It’s technically a door-hanging, I think, and she got it from Grandma—it’s a little pink pillow with a fluffy handle that came with the movie Sleeping Beauty. Rachel uses it as both a pillow and a purse. It’s precious to her.

When she found it she started making big plans for a celebratory event.

“I want to go to have a party!” she declared, “Everyone eats cake, plays with my toys, goes outsides, and brings a pillow!”

“What are you going to do with the pillows?” I asked.

“Sleep with them! It’s a sleep-party. We all bring pillows and sleep!”

Rachel’s never been to a sleepover before and it’s really kind of an odd concept for her, as an anti-sleeper, to come up with on her own. She kind of shocked me, especially with how excited she was about the idea.


She has been sleeping a bit better lately, truthfully, which has been nice. She didn’t take a nap today, which I didn’t think would be a problem because she often goes without naps, but then she crawled onto the couch after dinner and zonked out. I let her sleep for about 15 minutes before waking her up.

We went swimming today and she got kind of crazy in the baby pool, even though she wouldn’t let me let go of her in the big pool. She was holding onto the ledge while putting her face in, blowing bubbles, and kicking her legs. She’d be swimming if she’d just let go!

She must have used up all her stored up energy because she’s usually bouncing around until the very end of the day. Last night she was running around the house and driving me crazy so we invented a counting game right before bed. We played it until 8:30 or so, and as you can see she was pretty hyper the whole time. I was amazed she was able to focus the whole way through.


We took ten cue cards and drew little exes on them, then she covered up the exes with coins (and one trilobite), all the way from one to ten. She was so proud of herself.

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She’s getting pretty good at understanding counting and numbers, although she still won’t count higher than 2 or 3. Andrew had her stand on the scale this morning to weigh her and she ran out of the bedroom shrieking,

“Mommy! I weigh 25 numbers!”

Then it hit her that, now that we’ve weighed her, we might possibly think we should measure how tall she’s getting. She has this unwarranted fear of measuring tapes, so she ran away in a panic, screaming,

“Don’t measure me!”


  1. You are such a good, inventive, creative, hands-on mother! I just may copy that counting exercise idea someday. Until then, i need to just come up with other little fun things to do with Michael....instead of sitting here on the computer

  2. Awwww. My kids LOVE getting measured. I'm sure Rachel will outgrow her fear of the measuring tape. She sure is a smart little girl. It's fun to see what activities you and her come up with. That counting idea is a really good one. I think Rachel will be more than ready for school when her turn comes around. You're such a creative mother, Nancy!

  3. Oh, and I love her sleep over idea. I think it's so cute!!!

  4. Emmy has a weird fear of being measured, too! She is all for having a new dress until I mention that we should measure her. But she does love to play with the tape measure; it's one of her favorite toys. She goes all over "measuring" things and announcing that they are 2-10. Silly.

  5. That is sooo cute! maybe one day we can have a playdate and bring pillows so they can have a pretend sleep over!