Describing Rachel

Everyone is always trying to describe Rachel for us. Rachel is such a character, I don't blame folks for trying to stick adjectives on her.

Sister Williams, we know, thinks that Rachel is fun. And today Sister Kitchen also described Rachel to us.

"She's very alert," she started, "Although that's not quite the right word. She is always watching, trying to figure things out. She's not very active...and what I mean, because I know she's active, is that she doesn't just run around screaming for no reason like other babies. Everything she does is...is...is..."

"Purposeful?" I suggested. Deliberate. Calculated. Pre-meditated. They all work.

"Yes! She always thinks things through before doing them. She doesn't get into things just for the sake of getting into things."

"But when she does get into things she does a very good job," I added.

It's true. Our baby is curious and thoughtful. She wants to know how everything works. And she already imitates adult behavior.

Sometimes she holds the keys up to the doorknob. She tries to climb into her stroller when she wants to go for a walk. She likes to lie down on pillows like mom and dad. She likes to try to get dressed and undressed.

If she wants to climb up somewhere she will study out the "best" possible route, which doesn't always happen to be the best route, per se, but it is a workable route.

She saw the Q-tips in the drawer one day while I was holding her and when I put her down she crawled over the drawer and opened it up again. She felt around, ignoring the cord to Daddy's razor, the toothpaste, and the toothbrushes. And then she felt it: the Q-tip box. Just what she was looking for. She pulled it out of the drawer, spilling them all over the floor.

This morning I was visiting primary at the Country Springs branch and so Rachel was at home alone with Daddy. He had given her a whole (half of a) banana this morning for breakfast which she joyfully smashed all over herself and the table, so he cleaned her off and turned her loose while he cleaned up the table.

She wandered into the bedroom and found a box of Kleenex. He saw her pulling tissue after tissue out of the box and inspecting each one.

Sometimes it is more fun to see what she's going to do than it is to stop her, so he just watched.

She pulled out a tissue, looked at it, pulled on it, and threw it aside. She pulled out another tissue, looked at it, pulled on it, and kept it. Apparently this tissue was the best tissue of all the tissues.

She carried it over to my nightstand and started dusting it off.

When he took her back into the dining room she immediately crawled over to the garbage can, pulled out a discarded tissue, and began dusting a chair.

What can I say? When you're in a mood to clean, you're in a mood to clean.

So, yes, our daughter is a fun one to pin adjectives on.

Today we heard that she was busy, fun, energetic, normal, alert, and very deliberate.

How would you describe our baby?