Sit back, relax

Rachel has this thing about sitting down: she doesn't like to do it.

So if she's sitting in her high chair she'll lean over the sides. If she's sitting in someone's arms she'll try to climb up to their shoulders. And if she's sitting in her umbrella stroller she leans over and touches the wheels, making her hands very dirty.

Today when we went out to run errands we took her big stroller instead of the umbrella stroller because we had to carry all of our library books.

She didn't lean back in her stroller the whole way to the library. Instead she kept leaning over the edge of the stroller, seeing how far she could reach and what she could grab a hold of. I gave her a pine cone to keep her occupied and she held onto that for the rest of the way to the library, still sitting up, never resting her back.

Once we got to the library, Rachel wanted to get out and help choose books. She crawled up and down the aisles and made friends with the librarians and some little kids. She looked at a lot of books but only loved a few.

When she got sick of crawling she pulled herself up on the basket of the stroller and used it as a walker. We walked around and around and around, taking a few breaks to look at more books.

We ended up checking out more books than we returned.

Then we headed to the fabric store. Rachel had re-found the pine cone that she left in the stroller so she was content the whole way. She was happy inside the store as well because she could reach out and touch all the different bolts of fabric. Itchy fabrics, soft fabrics, see-through fabrics, stretchy fabrics. She put her hand out while we perused the aisles, touching each bolt of fabric in turn.

We finally settled on some fabric, purchased it, and headed for home.

This is when Rachel decided she was finished. She started screaming and struggling against her seat belt, so I let her get out and we played in the grass in front of the library for a little while.



Eventually I decided that it really was time to go home, so I picked Rachel up and fought her into the stroller. She screamed for about five minutes and then accepted her fate and played with the toys on her little tray, still, of course, leaning as far forward as possible.

When we were about ten minutes from home, I noticed that she was looking down at something in her hands. I couldn't tell what it was because her sunhat was covering it, but whatever it was it was really interesting because it had her really quite captivated. She stared at it, completely still, for two or three minutes. I was curious about what it was, but I wanted to get home, so I figured that if she was happy and still alive it was probably okay to play with.

Then we crossed a street, and it was a little bit of a bumpy ride. I noticed her head kind of jiggle and bounce a more than it would normally do. We came up the curb on the other side of the street her head swayed from side to side, looking very much like a bobble head doll.

I stopped walking, got down on her level and peeked up under the brim of her hat. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was fast asleep--sitting up, unsupported. I lowered the back of her seat, and slowly eased her onto it. She looked up at me, whimpered, and grabbed her blanket. Then she was out again.

I realize that Rachel is an independent person and I can appreciate that she doesn't like to sit. But really, you would think she'd be much more comfortable if she'd just lean back and relax.